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ar es id 


CHINESE PAINTING 


As Reflected in the Thought and Art of 
LI LUNG-MIEN 


CHINESE PAINTING 


As Reflected in the Thought and Art of 


LI LUNG-MIEN 


1070-1106 


BY AGNES E. MEYER 


NEW YORK 
Duffield 5 Company 
1923 


\ 


D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston | one 
Printed in the United States of America pre 


— To 
CHARLES LANG FREER 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Preface 
The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 
The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 
The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Index 


24.7 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


From Paintings by Li Lung-Mien 


Laotzu DELIverING THE Tao 'Té CHING 
Tue Lotus Crus 

Tue Lotus Civs 

Tue Lotus Cus 

Tue Lotus Cus 

Tue Lotus Cius 

Tue Lotus Crus 

Tur Lotus Civs 

Louans. From an Album 
A Louan. From an Album 
A Louan. From an Mie: 


HuntTING-ScCENE 


(PLATE XV) 
(PLATE VI) . 
(PLATE VII) 
(PLATE VIII) 
(PLATE XI) 

(PLATE IX) 

(PLATE XIII) 
(PLATE XIV) 
(PLATE XIX) 
(PLATE XX) 
(PLATE XVI) 


(PLATE I) 


FACING PAGE 


20 
40 
55 
73 
we 
11g 
134 
145 
166 
185 
214 


229 


PREPACGE 


FATS volume has been put together not for purely aesthetic or 

archaeological purposes, but because Chinese life and thought, of 

which Chinese art ts the most sensitive record, has an especial value 
for us at present. In spite of all our sctentific discoveries, the lessons of 
actuality have not yet been incorporated in our scheme of human behavior. 
The romantic, the philosophic, and the speculatively religious patterns 
established by our scholastic ancestry still hold us firmly in their grasp. 
‘Chinese life, on the other hand, was founded upon a highly developed 
understanding of the universe which, though lost at times, was ever re- 
captured and reinvigorated by later teachers who saw the value of that 
early wisdom. Until their thought degenerated completely —as all things 
must if only to make room for new efforts —the Chinese perfectly real- 
ized that all theory is vain, and that nature must be ever reconquered 
in order to be held at all, that the very process of living demands the con- 
stant annihilation of fancy for fact—only to have the elusive thing vanish 
once more in the effete subtilties of man’s imaginings. 

The very downfall of the Chinese proves thetr Taoist belief that con- 
tact with the environment, to remain such, must constantly renew itself, 
that even truth ts not eternal. 

And it is in the course of the conquest of our temporary truths that 
all such manifestations as religion, sctence, art, and philosophy are born. 
They are the records of the growth of the human sptrit, and they are 
valuable to posterity only as they continue to contribute to that growth. To 
this extent are they interesting, as indications of the life quest, but woe to 
those people who would put them above the quest itself! Woe to those who 


Tix J 


Preface 


would live by dogmatic systems of philosophy or religion or art rather 
than keep their attention tenaciously fixed upon the natural sources of such 
achievements ! Those are the innumerable souls who prefer theory to fact, 
conventions to living, and a closed mind to one fired by an adventurous 
and stimulating curtosity. 

In the hope of explaining the rise and fall of one such human cultural 
phase, my book faintly outlines the origins, the growth, and the gradual 
decay of Chinese art, and analyzes the art itself as a further elucidation 
of this development. It attempts to picture, let us say, the swaying of the 
Chinese pendulum between custom and creation, the story of human con- 
ventions destroying humanity, the tragic inevitability of which is softened 
by the thought that tradition, as tn the case of China, often makes us great 
before it slays us. 

Of this compensatory wisdom, of the light that the gods permit us to 
see before they once more strike us blind, art, and particularly Chinese 
art, remains to the dark ages that follow as one of the brightest beacons to 
solace our benighted spirits and to guide our groping footsteps onward to 
yet another height. Thus regarded, and it seems to me only thus, does our 
hungry pursuit of beauty achieve a meaning, thus only does it become 
something more than a vulgar craving of the senses. And because Chinese 
art more than any other helps us to find new ways of looking at life, 
because it gives anas yet unfelt poignancy to the everyday aspect of this 
world, and restores the fundamental love of earth and of actual things, 
because it defines for us man’s most elaborated idea of himself and the 
deep sane sources from which it sprang ; and above all things, because it 
shows the vanity of man-made structures before the shattering forces of | 


Cd 


Preface 


natural processes, Chinese art indubitably has a claim to be the very 
greatest of all such manifestations. 

In this evolutional picture, Li Lung-mien holds a place that makes 
him the crux of the entire development. Without being necessarily the 
greatest of the- Chinese painters, as several native critics claim, he is un- 
questionably, viewed from some aspects, the most important, and it was 
therefore fortunate for me that I chose him as the object of my spectal 
study. I say fortunate, because the choice was blindly made, out of sheer 
preference for his work and a determination to avoid vagueness by con- 
fining my field of inquiry to the efforts of a single artist. I found, alas, 
that no individual, not even a Li Lung-mien, has a personal significance 
in China, since even contemporary records of great men are burted in 
generalities and myths. While groping for facts, [ began to list all the 
paintings ascribed to Li Lung-mien, together with the descriptions and 
comments found in the Chinese art literature obtainable in the United 
States; and gradually there emerged the individuality that I had been 
seeking, and much besides. For I found that, bound up in one Chinese 
artists life and interests, were those of all his predecessors and all who 
came after him. Of its own accord the story spread out unut tt touched the 
Jirst dim years of Chinese history and illumined some of the very things 
that China feels and thinks to-day. 

For this reason I publish the entire catalogue of Li Lung-mten as it 
was compiled. As a source of reference for collectors and students it may 
have a specialized interest, but its claim ts broader than this, for in tt is 
contained a mental picture of one of China’s greatest men, together with 
his selection of what was noblest in her past from a political, philosophic, 


[ xi J 


Preface 


and artistic standpoint. The historical sense of the Chinese, their insistence 
that the race lives by its memories, is here presented as it affected a given 
person at a given time. The broad learning that is needed to write an ade- 
quate account of so vast a subject ts not mine, in spite of the able assist- 
ance that I have had from others, and if I have essayed the task, it is 
with the full realization that the material has been but lightly touched. 

In arranging the paintings, the categortes into which the great cata- 
logue of the Emperor Flut-tsung, the Ffstian-ho Flua-p’u, ts divided 
have been used, but the order in which they follow has been changed. The 
bibliography, of which only abbreviated titles are printed in the text of 
the catalogue, is given immediately after it. The measurements of Li 
Lung-mien’s paintings are left in the form in which the Chinese critics 
have recorded them. I at firstattempted to translate these figures into Eng- 
lish equivalents according to the method suggested by Professor Fried- 
rich Firth in his article in the T’oung Pao, but finding them of so many 
different periods, I gave up the idea for fear of inaccuracy. 

Some of the essays and poems found in the narrative have been trans- 
lated by others, but they have been retranslated here because they were 
so necessary a part of the whole. These translations do not and cannot 
convey adequately the rich content of the originals, which often ring with 
the reverberations that centuries of a poetic and scholarly heritage alone 
can give, but I hope that the accuracy for which I have striven will 
atone for the lamentable absence of poetic overtones. 

My profound thanks are due to Mr. T. Y. Leo, without whose broad 
scholarship and untiring zeal the innumerable translations which were 
necessary could never have been made, and to Professor Friedrich Hirth, 


c xii J 


Preface 


whose constant help and encouragement in my studies of the Chinese lan- 
guage I shall never be able to repay. To Frederic W. Ellis, Clayton 
FLamitton, and Carl W. Bishop I wish also to acknowledge a special debt 
for thetr careful and critical reading of my completed manuscript. 

But first and last is my gratitude, my profound admiration, and my 
unfaltering devotion due to that greatest lover of the Chinese sense of 
life and beauty, Charles Lang Freer, whose genius those who were for- 
tunate enough to experience it can never forget. Fits was the clearest 
viston of what China has yet to give us, and his death was as happy 
as his life had been inspired, because of the consciousness that his great 
work of bringing to the Occident the best that China has produced was 
being so magnificently accomplished. I feel what I have done here as 
nothing but a dim reflection of his great light, founded upon his teach- 
ing and his insight, it is but the beginning of that unending quest upon 
which he has started all who shall rightly see the ortental treasures that 
he has amassed—a quest not for a new world, but for this same old 
ever present world which the Chinese knew and Joved so well—a quest 
on which I travel happily and hopefully without the pretense of having 
arrived. 

AGNES E. MEYER 
Fuly 16, 1923 
Mt. Kisco, New York 


NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION 


The catalogue of Li Lung-mien’s paintings and the bibliog- 
raphy have been omitted from this edition, but the references to 
the catalogue have been left to indicate statements that are sub- 
stantiated by it. References to tllustrations are by plate numbers 


which are cross-indexed under the list of illustrations. 


rm 


CHINESE PAINTING 


THE PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND OF 
LI LUNG-MIEN 


I 

HE Chinese are the only civilized people of whom it may truly be said 

that they were at home in the world. They are the one example of a 

race-mentality that from its first recorded thought put the centre of 
gravity in the universe, instead of placing it, as occidental culture always has, 
within the human breast. Our western civilization, through its heritageof Greek 
anthropomorphism and the Christian belief that man alone was made in the 
image of God, has for centuries created a vast chasm between man and his 
surroundings, and forced him to think of himself as something precious and 
apart. This narcissism, humanity’s worship of itself, the Chinese avoided, for 
they have given an uninterrupted consideration to the cosmic mechanism, and 
have ever remembered to look upon man as merely one of nature’s innumer- 
able manifestations, whose welfare lay in understanding natural laws and liv- 
ing in accordance with them. And since they looked out upon the world with 
interest rather than with fear, they learned gladly and joyously to play the 
humble part assigned to individual man in that vast structure, without wasting 
their energies on making that part seem more important than it is. 

This utter impersonality, this emphasis of the social rather than the individ- 
ual self, is the first characteristic that captures the attention in reading the 
Chinese records of the life and work of the Sung painter, Li Lung-mien. These 
records one and all observe a sequence of praise wholly new and strange to 
the western reader, for they place at the head of his many distinctions the no- 
bility of his character, then speak of his reverence for China’s antiquities and of 
his zeal as a collector, and only lastly allude to the seemingly much less im- 


portant fact that he was the most famous painter of his day, if not of all time. 


ce 


Chinese Painting 


“What energy remained,’ declares the Hua Chi, after describing Li’s fine dis- 
crimination and enthusiasm as a collector, ‘‘was devoted to painting.”’ The bio- 
graphical section of the ‘‘ History of the Sung Dynasty ” is even more extreme 
in this attitude, for it says: “He had a transcendently distinguished mind and 
manners that were much admired by all the famous scholars of his day. Huang 
Shan-ku said of him that the poetical and gracious nature of his conduct and 
character was inferior to none of the ancients. However, he suffered greatly 
from his ability as a painter, since he is known to the world only for his art.” 
In an inscription by Li on the painting of one of his greatest masters, Yen 
Li-pén, he defines his own attitude toward art. ‘Divine accomplishment in 
pictorial art,’’ he writes, ‘is not incompatible with being a man of character 
and ability. On the other hand, if a man is really able and good, it will only 
add to the value of his artistic skill.’”’ Moreover, an examination of the cata- 
logue of his paintings reveals the fact that most of them are free copies, many 
of them actual tracings of ancient works, done either for the purpose of pre- 
serving some old masterpiece that had been ill-used by time, or simply out of 
admiration and as a tribute to the artistic achievement of one of his famous 
predecessors ; and those paintings which seem to be originals are devoted to 
the portrayal of China’s development either from the historical or from the cul- 
tural point of view. From this it would appear that the Chinese artist strove 
primarily to achieve a character that might approach in beauty and merit those 
of the great sages of the past; only in the second place he thought of his art, 
and then largely as an instrument for the celebration of former minds and 
former events. He must in all respects be worthy of the finest that had gone 
before him if he would, without impairing it, transmit his exalted heritage to 
the ages yet to come. To this end every ability that he might possess was 


developed, but not as an end in itself. The sterile aestheticism of art for art’s 


C4] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


sake was an impossible conception to one for whom all expression was but 
an opportunity for maintaining the continuity of life. 

This attitude of service is so taken for granted in the Chinese manuscripts 
and so radically different from the occidental artist’s emphasis of self, that the 
westerner cannot understand the mentality behind this impersonal conception, 
unless he tries to discover the sources from which it sprang and the currents 
that fed its growth. For it must be borne in mind that the development of Chi- 
nese culture experienced no violent breaks such as Europe suffered when 
Greece gave way to Rome, Rome to the Goth, and the Mediaeval Age to the 
Renaissance. China’s culture, though it waned at times, was nevertheless 
unbroken from its semi-historical beginnings about three thousand years B.c. 
to its climax in the T’ang dynasty ( A.D. 618-907 ) ; and only an analysis of its 
first frank outlook upon the world and a survey of its steady and unified up- 
building can reveal the mental and spiritual influences in which at its height 
it expressed itself. This does not mean that in China revolutions were either 
less frequent or less violent than in Europe; but so firm was the foundation 
of what was literally their Weltanschauung that it withstood upheavals of all 
sorts unimpaired, and assimilated, without changing its essential character, 
any influence to which it was exposed. Just as the Chinese race has always 
absorbed and made part of itself the races with which it came into conflict, so 
the primitive Chinese concepts grew either from their own inner strength, 
as in the time of Confucius and Laotzu, or because they absorbed new life by 
spiritual conquest, as the Buddhist invasion demonstrates. 

Therefore, in order to understand the work of an eleventh century painter 
and his attitude toward it, we must first have a clear perspective of the age- 
long and unbroken development of which he, in his moment, tried deliberately 


to make himself a part. To tear him from that great unity is to leave him 


Bei, 


Chinese Painting 


incomprehensible. The words he speaks, the pictures he paints, his ideals, his 
friendships, his mode of life, all are mere riddles unless we try to see them 
through his eyes. Nor could any other painter that was ever produced by 
this culture illustrate more clearly, or in more diversified directions than does 
Li Lung-mien, the strength and the exquisiteness of Chinese tradition. His is 
one of the noblest examples of what a powerful heritage can do for mankind 
when it is of such a nature as to free the spirit instead of binding it. Not only 
was Li a high-minded character, a discriminating collector, and the greatest 
painter of his time, but he was also a man of wide learning, of deeply philo- 
sophic temper, a man of splendid literary attainments, and for thirty years an 
honored government official. To judge his virtues or his limitations, in order 
to decide how nearly he fulfilled the ideals he had set for himself and what 
the forces were that created those ideals for him, we must for the moment for- 


get the individual and strive for a comprehension of his cultural setting. 


II 
Tue basis of Chinese life and thought was a powerful philosophic tradi- 
tion, which in its main direction was already perfectly defined in those remote 
ages when Chinese history began to emerge from the mythological stage. The 
fundamental aspects of this philosophic tradition are, first, the fact that from 
its earliest appearance it drove the mind outward toward a contemplation of 
the universe and the processes of nature, and secondly, the fact that this out- 
ward-turning habit of mind became not only the dominant trait of their philo- 
sophic thinking but the basis also of their religion, their ethics, and their social 
structure. This fortunate integration of thought gave the race a powerful 


unity in its motives and interests, saved it from loss of energy and devitalizing 


Rio 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lun ¢- Mien 


of impulses through mental conflicts, and left it free of all necessity for inward 
willing, so that all its creative force could be spent in outward willing, that 
is, in actual living and producing. 

For, somehow, the Chinese had what, from the modern point of view, would 
be adjudged the best possible kind of beginning. They must have had the good 
fortune to live on a soil so beneficent that their minds were not forced by the 
rigors of life into consideration of other-worldly compensation or into the cre- 
ation of one or more protective personal deities. In their primitive concepts 
there were no traces of a propitiatory attitude toward nature, none of those 
elements of fear so numerous in the mythologies of all other races, which have 
to be overcome before further progress is possible. The Egyptians died still 
dominated by their gods, the Greeks and Romans had to live theirs down or 
transmute them in order to develop their real contributions to later civilization, 
but the primitive thought of the Chinese was such that it could become the basis 
of the metaphysical and political systems of their later constructive thinkers. 

Nor is the tenacity and endurance of their early beliefs at all astonishing 
to the modern mind when we realize that they were founded not on the usual 
mystic awe of nature and the consequent deification of forces that were not 
understood, but upon close observation of the heavens, which resulted, more 
than four thousand years ago, in an astronomical science so truly learned, 
systematic, and instrumental that it has been equalled in method and exact- 

ness by our occidental world only for some two hundred years.’ Noting the 
harmony of the solar system, they decided that there must correspond to it a 
harmony of earthly things, and upon their observation of the heavenly firma- 
ment they strove to regulate all their terrestrial interests. Having recognized 


" See the important articles by Leopold de Saussure on ‘‘ L’astronomie chinoise dans |’antiquité’’ in the 
T’oung Pao, Ser. II, Vols. TX and X. 


Parcel 


Chinese Painting 


and learned to love the order of their environment, they sought an exact 
parallelism between its laws and the laws of man, in the hope that this same 
order might then prevail in human affairs. To this end formulas were found 
in the positions and movements of the stars that determined both the correct 
organization of the state and the proper conduct of the individual. To the pre- 
eminence of Tai-yi, the North Star, corresponded the imperial preéminence 
on earth, and both were worshipped for a sacredness that was identical in 
character. The ancient empire of Yii the Great (c. 2205 B.c.) was divided into 
a central province containing the capital, the dwelling-place of the emperor, 
and eight other provinces arranged in such a way as to represent as nearly 
as possible the eight divisions of the circumference. As the pole-star was the 
centre of heaven, so the throne was the centre of the earth, and since the prime 
divisions of the circumference are those into four or eight parts, the emperors, 
putting themselves in the forefront of the universe, referred to their imperial 
persons, even down to the late establishment of a republic, as ‘We, the pre- 
eminence of nine and five.’’ The Chinese of those early days did not invent 
a personal god to stand between them and the world’s immensity, and “ The 
Emperor on High,” as the North Star was called, enjoyed in ancient times 
no greater sanctity than did the emperor on earth. This point must be em- 
phasized in order to bring home to our anthropomorphic and theistic minds 
the purely physical character of early Chinese thought. No god or gods were 
created apart from the universe to symbolize their craving for the immaterial, 
but in the unchanging character of nature’s laws they beheld a beauty far 
more satisfying than the petty imaginings of man, and only through a com- 
prehension of the actual did they seek for and find the eternal. 

Instead of a deity to create the world, they were content with the abstract 


principles of the Yang, the hot, dry, male element, and the Y7m, the cold, 


Mate 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


moist, female element, which, exteriorized as heaven and earth, had through 
their interaction produced all things. Notably they had set in motion the five 
elements of earth, wood, metal, fire, and water, and the history of all forms 
of life consisted in the fixed and astronomically determined evolutions of these 
substances. It was this evolution that resulted in the four seasons; moreover, 
to these five elements corresponded the five personal virtues, just as the Yang 
and Yin expressed themselves in human affairs in the male and female, the 
father and mother, in the superior and inferior, the prince and his subjects. 
In ways such as this did the celestial universe constantly influence the terres- 
trial world according to a physico-chemical determinism of purely sidereal 
origin; and the sacredness of the calendar was due to the fact that it established 
and recorded this harmonious progression. Compared with our modern know- 
ledge, the naturalistic basis of their culture was slight, but even if their physics 
can be summed up in the antithesis of two principles and their chemistry in 
the evolution of five elements, these hypotheses are nevertheless noteworthy 
for the understanding which they show of universal determinism and the evo- 
lutional character of the earth’s development, as well as the objective search 
for the basic facts of life which such discoveries imply.’ 

This interrelation of their science, ethics, and religion is the explanation of 
the firmness and grandeur of their earliest civilization, whose magnificent 
bronzes and jades fortunately still exist to demonstrate the geometrical and 
physical nature of their thought as well as the artistic and scientific knowledge 
which must have been the possession of the age that created them. Their feet 
were planted upon the soil while their eyes looked starward for guidance, 
and thus, firmly interwoven with their environment, they withstood shock 
after shock, while European cultures tumbled one before the other. Instead of 


"See further astronomical articles by De Saussure, T’oung Pao, Ser. II, Vol. XI. 


ges 


Chinese Painting 


writing myths about the gods, they built canals and embankments that de- 
manded great engineering skill, made agricultural discoveries, invented 
astronomical instruments to chart the skies, and compasses with which to trav- 
erse the expanse of waste lands that separated them from their neighbors. 
It is necessary to mention that, because of this close association of religion 
and experience, the early Chinese have been called practical and dull in com- 
parison with the imaginative Greeks; but who can dare to say that more im- 
agination is implied in the worship of Demeter and Dionysus than in the dis- 
covery and application to life of a theory of evolution? The main difference 
between the two races lies not in quantity of imagination, but in the directions 
which their interests took. For the Greeks became constantly more specula- 
tive and dissociated from the actual conduct of life, whereas the Chinese think- 
ers, even in their most imaginative flights, sought constantly to find a practical 
rule for the adjustment of man to his environment. The one race, to our mis- 
fortune, evolved an elaborate system of abstract logic that hasuselessly sapped, 
to this very day, the energies of untold generations of thinking men; the other 
race evolved a system of behavior which grew through active experimenta- 
tion and made for productivity and happiness during well-nigh four thousand 


years. 


: III 
As there is nothing of a really primitive character in the thought of these 
earliest Chinese records,a long development, of whichwe as yet knownothing, 
must have preceded such an intelligent attitude toward life. It may indeed be 
asked why the tendency toward physical inquiry did not continue, to which 
the probable answer is that these researches were necessarily not of a modern 


nature but of a social, quasi-religious character that soon forbade extensions 


[530 2 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


and innovations. Historical reasons, which have not yet been entirely clarified, 
must also have contributed to the cessation of these naturalistic explorations. 
We know only that the great constructive era of Chinese thought is still but 
dimly discerned as the reigns of those five semi-mythical emperors, beginning 
with Fu-hsi (c. 3322 B.c.) and ending with Yui the Great (c. 2205 B.c.), the 
founder of the Hsia dynasty (2205-1818 B.c.). Though later historians may 
have interpolated contemporary ideas in some of the ancient texts, it is never- 
theless reasonably certain that most of China’s basic ideas concerning the 
physical universe were in existence when that period of rulers, half-real, half- 
legendary, came to an end. Yii’s son was designated as the first hereditary 
emperor; and by the time his grandson ascended the throne, complete dis- 
organization had fallen upon this erstwhile peaceful land. Continual revolts 
of the powerful clans, assassinations of rulers, and attempted oppression were 
ended only when the Shangs, in 1766 B.c., became strong enough to enforce 
obedience from their rival overlords, and thus establish a new, if not a better, 
sovereignty. At this time the first losses in astronomical knowledge and in- 
strumentation must have taken place, for this department was under the pri- 
vate protection of the emperors and was necessarily neglected under helpless 
or inferior rulers. Appointments to the astronomical board were surely then, 
as so often in later reigns, made arbitrarily and for ulterior purposes, rather 
than for merit and fitness. Furthermore, the various discoveries and treatises 
were, at times, deliberately destroyed by powerful vassals with whose ambi- 
tions these state regulations interfered. 

Whatever the explanation, the tendency toward new physical research 
ended with the early Hsias, and the trend in these matters thereafter was to 
preserve sacredly the crumbs of ancient research, and to regain, if possible, 


the knowledge and methods that had been lost. Since the impulse to make for 


L143 


Chinese Painting 


themselves even the discoveries which antiquity had been able to find was 
absent, a real change in their intellectual drives must have taken place; and 
the best that later ages achieved was the knowledge that the health and hap- 
piness of the empire lay in a return to the deductions for the management 
of the state which the sages of China’s almost prehistoric period had made 
from their exploration of natural laws. In other words, as soon as we have any 
Chinese history, we perceive an already fully developed historical-mindedness. 

The Shang dynasty ( 1766-1122 B.c. ) was an extremely agitated and non- 
constructive interlude; but it was succeeded by remarkably able rulers, the 
emperors of Chou ( 1122-255 B.c. ), who devoted the first four hundred years 
of their reign to the recording and amplification of all that was best in ancient 
Chinese thought. 

The historical continuity between the Chous and their predecessors was 
cemented by several important documents that had, in some way, been pre- 
served throughout the turbulent years. Among these was the interesting 
“Canon of Yao,”* which describes the astronomical division of the empire, 
and enabled De Saussure to reconstruct and date the earliest astronomical 
discoveries; the ‘‘Canon of Shun,’’ Yao’s successor, is no less vivid in its de- 
scriptions of the gradual and orderly upbuilding of the Chinese state; “‘The 
Counsels of the Great Yii”’ is a more detailed account; but most illuminating 
of all these prehistoric remnants is “The Tribute of Yiu,’ which narrates 
the herculean labors of this monarch in fighting the devastating floods, and 
then outlines with exactness his division of territory and his system of taxa- 


tion. “‘ This book, if we could credit it,” says Legge,’ “would be a sort of 


‘For translations and discussions of all these books, see the Sha King in Legge’s Tezts of Confucianism, 
Vol. III. Oxford, second edition. 


* Ibid., p. 63. 


[12 ] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


domesday book of China in the twenty-third century B.c., in the compass of 
a few pages.”’ In recompiling this collection of their historical memorials, the 
scholars of the early Chou dynasty no doubt made changes and additions,’ 
and some of the records may have been rewritten outright; but many of the 
facts which they embody now appear to have been historically accurate, and 
even the idealization, if such it was, of these titanic figures of the empire’s 
legendary age must have been the result of their racial memories. 

These noble records of a noble age are borne out, in the character of their 
content, by an historically more valid document called “The Great Plan,” 
which is supposed to have been delivered to Wu, first Emperor of Chou, by 
the Count of Chi, Grand Master to the Court of the Shangs.” “ When we read 
this book,” says Legge, “we see that it belonged originally to the time of 
Hsia, and that the larger portion of it should be ascribed to the Great Yii, and 
was as old, indeed, as the reign of Yao.’’ Because of its greater claim to relia- 
bility, even though so great an antiquity may be doubted, “‘ The Great Plan” 
may be quoted more extensively. It contains a complete outline of what purports 
to be the ancient system of government, and gives in the simplest form the 
characteristics of the early Chinese mentality, which, though they became 
subtler, more comprehensive, and more complex as social intercourse became 
more involved, nevertheless remained essentially the same. Thus, to understand 
this era is, in spite of all surface elaborations, to understand China at any age. 

The first two sections of ‘‘The Great Plan” explain how the evolution of 
the five elements in the universal macrocosm is reflected in the human micro- 


cosm through the successive development of the five personal virtues. 


* See Legge’s Introduction to the Sha King, and De Saussure’s discussion of the Canon of Yao, in the J” oung 
Pao, Vol. IX. 


* Legge, Sha King, p. 137. 


fers 3) 


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The eight departments of administration which Yii the Great enumerates 
under section three give, through the order of their sequence, an excellent idea 
of the amazing civilization which those early rulers had attained, as well as 
a clear insight into their marvellously pragmatic thinking. In order to main- 
tain perfect peace in this world, a wise emperor will first attend to agriculture, 
since food is the prime necessity ; then he will look to accessory needs in the 
development of commerce; thirdly, he will insist upon the sacrificial rites 
through which the forces of nature are propitiated; the Ministry of Works 
must superintend the division of land and the protection of property; public 
instruction is next in importance; then comes the suppression of crime; a sep- 
arate department devoted to the protection of strangers and travellers indi- 
cates the animated life of the period; only at the end is the imperial consid- 
eration given to the army, for even at that time the Chinese sages had learned 
to look upon war as the last and the worst of expedients. 

“The Great Plan” also devotes a whole section to astronomy, and to the 
intricate theory of numbers which grew out of it and ever remained so impor- 
tant a part of the Chinese theory of knowledge. 

As the emperor is the pivotal point of earthly things, the fifth or central 
section is devoted to his dignity and duties. He holds his exalted place by the 
will of Heaven, but “‘if the common people complain, he may be assured that 
Heaven is dissatisfied with him.” If, on the other hand, “the people are satis- 
fied with his rule, he may be certain that Heaven is likewise satisfied.” Thus 
did religion conform to reality. 

The same delightfully sensible attitude toward mystical things is revealed in 
the ideas of the Great Yii upon divination." In discussing this important topic 


under section seven he announces: ‘‘When in doubt about any great matter, 


“A very ancient method of foretelling the future by means of the tortoise-shell and divining-rods. 


peta 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


consult your mind; consult your high ministers and officers; consult with the 
common people; consult the tortoise-shell and divining-stalks.’””* And in his 
‘‘Counsels’’* he puts the matter even more bluntly when he says: ‘ Oneshould 
first make up his mind, and afterwards refer to the great tortoise-shell.’’ 
“The Great Plan” emphasizes above all things the interwelding of man’s 
fortunes with the elements of earth and air. Much of this feeling for physical 
phenomena was unquestionably of a near-superstitious nature, but as a rule 
even their so-called superstitions concealed a reasonable attitude which their 
lack of instrumentation and research could not make manifest. The important 
point is that their tendencies were objective in trend, were constantly based 
_ on the appeal to reality, and thereby maintained in them an ever-recurrent 
readiness to submit their theoretical deductions to the test of external fact. 
Undoubtedly the most important document for the preservation and prac- 
tical application of the ancient codes is the Yi Ching, ‘‘ The Book of Changes,” 
the compilation of which was begun by the father of the first Chou emperor,’ 
though much of it harks back to a still remoter date, and completed in later 
centuries by Confucius and his disciples.* This ancient classic is the one that 
shows most clearly the unityin Chinese thought of physical laws with the social 
order and the moral equilibrium. The character “ Yi,” meaning “change,” is 
made up of the character that denotes the sun placed over that of the moon, 
their very language structure thus demonstrating their belief that human 
events follow an evolution akin to that of natural phenomena. The scientific 
foundation for the laws which the Yi contains had, even as early as the Chou 
dynasty, been lost and poetical explanations substituted; but it nevertheless 
contained for the Chinese the whole sum of human wisdom, and the great 


* Legge, Sha King, p. 146. * Ibid., p. 50. 
*Hirth, Ancient History of China, p. 59. * Legge, Texts of Confucianism, Vol. II, p. 26. 


fats] 


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Confucius is later reported to have said of it: “If some years were added to 
my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and might then escape fall- 
ing into great errors.” It consisted of sets of eight trigrammes, discovered 
supposedly by Fu-hsi, the first of the semi-mythical emperors mentioned by 
Chinese historians. The trigrammes were founded on the division into two 
of the four seasons of the year by the equinoxes and solstices, in each of which 
demi-seasons the Yim and the Yang appear inversely.” The reasoning has 
been obscured by time and is now extremely difficult to follow even by the 
Chinese, but enough of it has been rediscovered to prove that the trigrammes 
were logically constructed from astronomical facts and not casually invented 
by a mythical emperor. Though the exact basis for the deductions was lost, 
the feeling for it remained and the frank dependence of their ideals for be- 
havior upon the mechanistic behavior of natural phenomena is clearly stated 
again and again. In the Appendices we read: * 

“‘Anciently, when the rule of all under heaven was in the hands of Pao- 
hsi [ Fu-hsi], looking up, he contemplated the brilliant forms exhibited in the 
sky; and, looking down, he surveyed the patterns shown on the earth. He 
marked the ornamental appearances on birds and beasts, and the suitabilities 
of the soil. Near at hand, in his own person, he found things for consideration 
and the same at a distance in things in general. On this he devised the eight 
lineal figures of three lines each, to exhibit fully the spirit-like and intelligent 
operations [in nature ], and to classify the qualities of the myriads of things.”’ 

With these trigrammes as the key, all questions of politics, religion, and 


ethics are then analyzed and answered. An elucidation of the methods does 


* Three lines, broken or unbroken, placed one above the other. See Legge. 
*De Saussure, J’oung Pao, Vol. XI, p. 227. 
* Legge, Texts of Confucianism, Yi Ching, Vol. II, p. 11. 


Petes] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


not concern us here, but their practical value must be incontestable if measured 
by the length of time that they have served as one of the main bulwarks of 


Chinese civilization. 


IV 

‘Tue continuation of the splendid work of the Western, or early, Chou dy- 
nasty became endangered as the characters of their emperors degenerated, 
and the entire structural continuity was threatened when powerful vassals, 
notably the rulers of Ch’i and Ch’in and Ch’u, began to usurp the sovereignty 
of the central government.’ The intricate hierarchy, as well as the theories 
upon which it rested, might yet have been lost, had not all the literature of 
the early Chou dynasty as well as that of the previous, more scientifically 
minded age, been rescued by the greatest historian that any race has ever 
produced. In the middle of the sixth century, Confucius devoted himself to 
the reéditing of all the ancient historical and philosophical texts, and his in- 
fluence as an individual was commensurate with that of his literary endeavors.” 
The early emperors had greatly elaborated the theory of state-ceremony 
which the Chou Li still records in detail, but Confucius now applied the same 
minute regulations to the conduct of the individual, and his personal demeanor 
was as a beacon-light, not only to his dissolute contemporaries, but to cen- 
turies of Chinese scholars who sought in him the pattern of a great and beau- 
tifully mannered gentleman. 

So sympathetic with the ancient texts was the work of Confucius that it is 
often difficult to determine what part was of older origin and what was added 
by the great philosopher and his fellow-commentators, an indication in itself 


of the unity of thought between the Confucian age and the primitives. In fact, 


‘Hirth, Ancient History of China, Sec. V. *Ibid., pp. 251-257. 


Bea 


Chinese Painting 


most sinologues are convinced that “ what Confucius taught was not so much 
the creation of his own philosophic mind as the result of his historical studies,””? 
and Confucius speaks of himself as “‘a transmitter and not a maker, believ- 
ing and loving the ancients.”’* This would seem to be the case, for we find in 
Confucius the same attempt to establish harmony between heaven and earth, 
which is the sum total of the ancient lore. Just as they looked to the laws that 
govern the stars for the laws that govern man, so Confucius turned to nature 
as a basis for his ethical and political homilies, not because of poetical-minded- 
ness, but because his system for the family and the state, his belief in filial 
piety and ceremony, were the direct outcome of his inherited knowledge of 
nature’s beautiful patterns and their orderly progression. If he could give 
to the social structure the careful organization that he observed in the cos- 
mic processes, would he not win for humanity the same harmonious unity of 
changeless laws, working together for an unending evolution? Since modern 
scientists’ admit as true the Chinese belief of a corresponding harmony be- 
tween the meteorological and the organic cycles, we must concede to their 
method of finding in the mechanisms of the universe an analogy for the natural 
behavior of man,a superb logic,an elemental quality,a something so inevitable 
that the beauty of the system of ceremonials and their preservative function 
become readily comprehensible even to the occidental mind. 

For documentary proof of Confucius’ adherence to the ancient mode of 
thought, no better example can be chosen than the Yi Ching, to which we 
have already alluded. The Appendices, some of which are supposed to have 
been written by Confucius himself, the rest by his followers, are in absolute 
harmony with the spirit of the body of the text and show clearly how post- 


‘Hirth, Ancient History of China, p. 241. * Legge, Teats of Confucianism, Vol. III, p. 3. 
* Henderson, The Order of Nature, Chap. 6. 


E18 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


Confucian philosophy built upon the ancient ideas, amplifying, making more 
sophisticated definitions with wider applications, but keeping closely to the 
old quality and attitude of mind. But let us turn to his own words when he 
describes the ideal man:”* 

“The Great Man is he who is in harmony in his attributes with heaven 
and earth; in his brightness with the sun and moon; in his orderly procedure 
with the four seasons; and in his relation to what is fortunate and what is ca- 
lamitous with the spiritual agents.” 

Lest some anthropomorphic western mind should misunderstand the sig- 
nificance of “ spiritual agents,” let it be stated that “kuei shén,”’ the Chinese 
equivalent, is defined by the philosopher Chu Hsi as “‘a name for the process 
of growth and decay,” and by another Sung philosopher as “ the contracting 
and expanding energies of nature.”* In other words, Chinese philosophy per- 
mits of no dualism. The physical and spiritual aspects of things are one, and 
the harmony that must exist between them is the dominant thought of the 
ancient ‘‘ Book of Changes”’ as: well as the Confucian Appendices. 

There is no doubt that the “‘kuei shén”’ had a less abstract interpretation with 
the populace of China, especially in the later Chou dynasty, when the loosening 
of state-control and a widespread Tartar influence gave ample room for the 
development of superstition.’ But in its first manifestations the large and vary- 
ing demonology which gradually arose and multiplied, creating local and in- 
numerable gods of the soil and household, was simply a wholesome popular 
expression of the more profound attitude toward nature which the social and 


philosophic systems embodied. 


*Legge, Teats of Confucianism, Vol. Il, p. 47. *Ibid., pp. 45 and 46. 
* Hirth, Ancient History of China, pp. 268-273. 


[Ato] 


Chinese Painting 


V 

Contemporary with this reinvigoration of the classic texts and the ancient 
rules of state was another less formulated but no less powerful stimulus to the 
development of Chinese life. Just as Confucius strove for the political and moral 
organization of his country,so Laotzt emphasized the valuesof the purely meta- 
physical aspect of its life. For Laotzt, too, was no innovator but a great thinker 
who made more definite a tendency toward individualism that, side by side with 
Confucian conformity, had always existed in the Chinese mentality. Though 
each of these great men is supposed to have thought his philosophy to be irre- 
concilable with that of his contemporary, both their systems are based upon the 
same hypotheses and diverge only in that they emphasize different phases of 
the same theory of nature; the laws that Laotzt applied to the individual, Con- 
fucius used to strengthen the relationship of the individual to the state; but so 
related and coherent were their views that most of those who later called them- 
selves Taoists saw no contradiction in calling themselves also Confucians. 

Laotzt’s great document is the Tao Té Ching,’ which he wrote before dis- 
appearing forever from the knowledge of his contemporaries. ‘‘ He so loved 
obscurity that he deliberately effaced all traces of his life.” In spite of this, 
many sinologues can prove conclusively that Laotzi never existed and could 
not have written the Tao Té Ching; but from the historical point of view this 
question is just as important as the discussions concerning the existence of 
Moses or Christ. Even if somebody invented them, it matters not. There they 
are with their undeniable actuality as influences on the ages past, present, and 
to come. Whether or not a man named Laotzti wrote the Tao Té Ching, it is 
nevertheless the fundamental document of Taoism, of which Laotzt was the 


accredited founder. 


*See Catalogue, Category III, No. 53. 


[ 20 ] 


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The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


In the very opening of the Tao Té Ching it is stated: ‘‘ Before the begin- 
ning of time, there was a Divine Principle, ineffable, unnameable. While it 
was unnameable, it conceived heaven and earth. When it had thus become 
nameable, it gave birth to all beings.” In other words, the Yin and Yang are 
changed into the Divine Principle or Tao, but the conceptions are identical. 
And how different from our Genesis, in which God creates the world and 
remains remote enough to see that it was good; for the Chinese the divine 
power becomes nameable, tangible, becomes the world itself, so that hence- 
forth whatever there be of the spiritual and the eternal must be sought in the 
world and not beyond it. Assuredly they more than .any other race were con- 
vinced that heaven lay about them. 

The Tao comprehended many more of the early beliefs. It was a restate- 
ment in metaphysical terms of what the early astronomers had demonstrated 
in exact science, and it succeeded in reincorporating as part of the feeling-tone 
of the race what earlier had been their intellectual conclusion —that the universe 
can beinterpreted as'a rhythmical and unified progression, and that the unchang- 
ing force which had produced man and his environment could be further trusted 
to develop the situation if man but comprehended this “universal becoming ”’ 
and taught his heart to beat in the self-same measure. This is nothing but a re- 
statement of the ideaof evolution and adaptation on which the Yi Ching spends 
all its admonitions; so unified in fact is the teaching of Laotzt with those of the 
primitives that the Chinese refer to “‘ Huang-Lao”’ as the founder of Taoism, 
giving thereby equal credit to the semi-mythical Emperor Huang-ti. 

Though Confucianism and Taoism were based upon the same conception 
of the universe, their aims differed in that the Confucians were interested 
mainly in the application of natural law to group life, to the relationships of 


man to man, whereas the Taoists sought to understand and define the law 


21] 


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itself. They were consequently eager to maintain an unbroken contact with 
the source of their inspiration, with nature; and it became their lot to continue 
China’s old hermit-philosophy with its staunch tradition of independence, as it 
became that of the Confucians to rebuild the ancient and beautiful structure of 
the state. Whereas Taoism continued the Chinese insistence upon the freedom 
of the individual and the importance of individual contribution to society, Con- 
fucianism, through its emphasis of relationship and continuity, preserved and 
developed these contributions for the good of the community and its descend- 
ants. Though the Taoist at times sacrificed every vestige of social responsibility 
in order to maintain his personal integrity, this was not egotistically done; the 
thoughts which he formulated in his mountain fastnesses no less greatly and no 
less definitely guided the destinies of his fellow-countrymen. “If Heaven and 
Earth endure forever,” said Laotzu, “‘it is because they do not exist for them- 
selves.” Thus did their constant dependence upon externality, individualists 
though they were, save them from the morass of subjectivity, and their lives 
were just as splendidly purposeful as those of their more Confucianized fellow- 
citizens. 

Nor must we let ourselves see China as torn between the two tendencies. 
Except at periods of great mental and political stress, both ideals, having a 
common basis, existed successfully in the same mentality, and men were 
called Confucians or Taoists because one or the other aim predominated, and 
not because either was ever entirely absent. This mingling of motives, this 
fostering of individual and communistic ideals that sprang from a common 
source, became the mainspring of China’s breadth and elasticity of mind; for 
just as the integration of their various interests lent strength and solidarity to 
their culture, so this interaction of communism and individualism fertilized their 


imaginations and stimulated them to a variety and splendor of expression. 


[ 22 | 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


VI 

Iw spite of the forceful restatements which the Chinese system of govern- 
ment and thought obtained through Laotzii and Confucius, and again in the 
fourth century s.c. from their no less brilliant disciples, Chuangtzt and Men- 
cius, the disintegration of the Chou dynasty could no longer be stemmed. The 
power and position of the emperor were gradually usurped by powerful vas- 
sals,' and from the disintegration of the national organization there resulted 
a laxity in individual conduct with which Confucius and his followers were 
powerless to contend. 

So great was the recuperative power of Chinese thinking that after cen- 
turies of pitiful chaos and the destruction of most of the classic literature,’ it 
rose again and, under the rulers of Han (202 B.c.- A.D. 220), dominated the 
country with all its former certainty and with the same magnificent results. 
By its broad enterprise, its eager development of contacts with foreign lands, 
and its great productivity, the Han dynasty illustrated what a return to the 
early ideas as reinterpreted by Laotzt and Confucius could do for the devel- 
opment of the country. The emperors again became powerful enough to main- 
tain themselves as the sole mediators between heaven and earth, and through 
mental honesty, humaneness, and simplicity, regained the confidence and loy- 
alty of their people. Scholarship and a knowledge of the Confucian classics 
were permanently exalted through the institution of a civil-service examina- 
tion, and democracy of an intellectual sort was assured, inasmuch as the ex- 
aminations were open to all. Governmental forms were fixed, of an adminis- 


trative, military, judicial, and social nature, that have endured in China down 


“Hirth, Ancient History of China, Sec. VI. 


* The first Ch’in Emperor burned most of the ancient literature in 213 B.c. and proscribed its possession 
on pain of death. 


[ 23 ] 


Chinese Painting 


to the present day,’ and the freedom of intercourse that again existed between 
the ruler and the ruled was such that it became an ideal and a byword for 
later and less fortunate eras. Even if the age had not quite the elemental vigor 
of the earlier periods, it had breadth and sanity and a poise whose quality can 
still be felt by any one who studies the sturdy and all but unbroken outlines 
of the bronzes, jades, and potteries which it produced in such profusion. 

If we look back for a moment, it becomes clear that China had now enjoyed 
for a period of three thousand years an unbroken stream of objective think- 
ing. This objectivity had been achieved through an early appreciation of the 
importance of natural laws, derived mainly from an observation of the astral 
firmament; and the whole structure of their civilization, whether social, ethical, 
or religious, was as close an analogy as they could find to their understand- 
ing of this physical mechanism. In contrast to the occidental situation, they 
evolved thereby, not a contradictory field of philosophy and religion, but a 
system of behavior whose integral quality spared them the schisms between 
religion and philosophy or religion and science, that disastrous inner strug- 
gle of self against self which saps so much of the energy of occidental races. 
The whole history of their mental progress was free to a singular degree from 
the devastating inroads of fear and doubt. Theirs was never the lot to feel 
within themselves a dozen different heritages, each pulling in a different di- 
rection, but in the full triumph of life they achieved that peace which for us 
passeth all understanding. 

Nor was there anything static about this perfect equilibrium. It was essen- 
tially dynamic, for in nature, with its endless creating and its beautiful work- 
manship, they had the best example for well-directed activity, and they pos- 


"See Journal of the American Oriental Society, June, 1920,—T. H. Koo, ‘‘ The Constitutional Develop- 
ment of the Western Han Dynasty.’’ 


[ 24 ] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


sessed, through the integral quality of their lives, that sine qud non of great 
and diversified production, harmony between all the various groups of their 
memories, whether racial or individual. Moreover, their constant turning of the 
mind out toward the world instead of in upon itself not only created constant 
need for expression, but saved them from the narrowing influence of anthro- 
pocentrism, from the morbidity of an exaggerated introspection, and the con- 
sequent over-emphasis of self, that continuous subjective stultification of the 
mind which is still permitted to impede our action and obscure our thought. 

Emerson in one of his inspired moments clearly divined the character of 
this people when he said: ‘“‘ The test of the poet is the power to take the pass- 
ing day and hold it up to a divine reason till he sees it to have a purpose and 
beauty, and to be related to astronomy and history and the eternal order of 
the world. Then the dry twig blossoms in his hand. He is coalesced and ele- 
vated.”’ This is pure Taoism, pure Confucianism. Poets all, a nation of poets, 
were the children of Chou and Han, and so true and strong was their vision 
that its clarity of insight survived in the thought and the productions of their 


remotest descendants. 


Vil 
Awnp then came Buddhism. To this well-ruled, well-adjusted, and energetic 
people with their highly developed spirit of physical inquiry now came the 
static Buddhist doctrine that the fountain of knowledge is the “pure bright 
self-enlightening mind.’’ To those minds that had been taught by all their 
sages to look outward came the word that “‘to look outward was to be a 
common man,” whereas ‘‘to look inward was to be Buddha.” This mentally 
active race was suddenly told that “if the mind does nothing, holds nothing, 


observes nothing, and aims at nothing,” there will be no difference between 


[C25 J 


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this life and the Nirvana. The lure of the beyond was for the first time pre- 
sented to those who for several thousand years had devoted their energies to 
studying how to live here and now. The devil entered and tempted them to 
barter their veritable kingdom of earth for a problematical kingdom of heaven. 

How was it possible that such a catastrophe could happen? 

As long as the Han dynasty held before the people the teaching and ex- 
emplary living of the classics, there was little danger that the pragmatic real- 
ism of China could be shaken by the mystical abstractions of the Hindu mind. 
But the rifts in the Chinese lute were twofold. The rule of the sages was im- 
posed entirely from above and was incapable of the development of a popu- 
lar expression. The Confucian system was too objective, too intellectual, and 
too severe to be understood directly by the masses, and could be conveyed 
to them with sufficient clarity only when a strong and beneficent government 
made tangible for its subjects the advantages of such teachings. “In nourish-. 
ing the people, it was kind, and in ordering the people, it was just,’’ but it de- 
liberately took over the task of thinking for the people, and it discouraged 
when it did not actually forbid them to think for themselves. 

Though no country has ever been more socially minded, more concerned 
for the happiness and welfare of its citizens, than China, the adequate protection 
of its people was possible only when the reins of government were securely 
held. And this could never indefinitely be the case; for once securely estab- 
lished, a tendency constantly developed in every dynasty to become too poised, 
too confident of its structure, too little given to those interrogations which in 
all human endeavor are the surest indication of life and strength. The philo- 
sophic principles gradually lost their dynamic power, because their vitality was 
not renewed through new applications in political and social fields. All politi- 


cal activity became apathetic, and the accumulating inertia of the government 


[ 26 | 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


finally brought about its own destruction. This was the history of the reign of 
the Hsias, of the Shangs, of the Chous, and again of the Hans. 

Left without material protection or spiritual guidance during such crises, 
the populace turned elsewhere for guidance; and just as during the débdcle 
of the House of Chou, they absorbed great masses of Tartar superstitions,’ so 
the breaking up of the Han Empire into petty rival states again weakened the 
faith of the unthinking multitude in Heaven’s Bright Ordinances, and made 
them a prey to such Buddhist theories as retribution in an after life, and to its 
many other emotional conceptions that were keyed much closer to the needs 
of the limited mentality than was the austere philosophy of China. 

The Buddhist invasion was therefore parasitical upon the situation which 
the objective thinking of China had created, and the very fact that Buddhism 
met a great need for popular thinking had its disastrous effects upon the his- 
tory of that religion among the Chinese. The Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle, 
which embodies the lofty ethical teachings of the Buddha himself, was too 
exacting in its demands, and the Mahayana, or Greater Vehicle, with its in- 
tricate metaphysics, was far too speculative for popular use. In their stead 
arose a very simple worship of one of the lesser Buddhas, called Amitabha, 
and his attendant Bodhisattwas, Ta-shih-chih and Kuan-yin, Goddess of 
Mercy. It was the mission of Amitabha to secure the salvation of all beings 
and to establish a heavenly region of the blessed, called by one of the two 
earliest sects of this religion Ching-t’u, or ‘Pure Land,” by the other Hsi 
Tien, or ‘‘ Western Heaven.” Faith alone was necessary to achieve these 
Elysian Fields, and the mere repetition of the name of the great Amitabha 
would insure the salvation of the direst sinner. A more completely stultifying 
emotionalism than this can scarcely be conceived, but its promises were as 


* See page 19 and footnote. 


; a, 


Chinese Painting 


great as its demands were slight, and Amidism, as this distorted Buddhism 
is called, swept through the country with an irresistible force. So successful 
was it in undermining the influence of the higher forms of Buddhism that as 
early as the tenth century, though divided into five different sects, its victory 
over all rival orthodox beliefs was complete. The Bodhisattwa Kuan-yin, em- 
bodiment of love and compassion,through whose benign intercession Paradise 
could also be gained, had now come to equal Amitabha himself in the regard 
of the masses; with a kindly and appealing mythology made visual in innu- 
merable stone statues, this faith was bound to absorb the vast multitudes who 


in all countries and all ages never develop beyond the fetishistic level. 


VIII 

I; is necessary to keep in mind the outlines of Amidism because to one of its 
branches, namely the Ch’an sect,’ is given the credit by all writers’ on the sub- 
ject of Chinese pictorial art for the development of landscape painting in China. 
This faith was brought from India a.p. 526, when Bodhidharma, whois styled 
the twenty-eighth Indian and first Chinese Patriarch, landed at Canton.’ 

Let us now consider the form in which this doctrine first arrived. What 
the Patriarch most particularly decried was the constant searching of the 
sutras for spiritual insight; he insisted that the human heart was the sole guide 
to true sanctity, and contemplation and introspection were the means, so to 
speak, of becoming acquainted with one’s self. When he spoke of the heart, he 
meant not the physical organ but a mystical entity which, in spite of its vague- 
ness, constituted the world’s only reality. Through its contemplation alone 


*Ch’an, i.e., ‘‘contemplation,’’ called ‘‘Zen’’ by the Japanese. 


* See especially the works of Fenollosa and Binyon. * Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, pp. 155-160. 


[ 28 J 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


could the vision of Buddha be attained. Nor was this contemplation the severe 
and ordered process which the Mahayana prescribed, but a purely intuitive 
self-concentration that began nowhere and ended in nothing. As all know- 
ledge came from this mystical ‘‘heart,”’ intellect and reason were both non- 
existent. 

Nagarjuna, the most important founder of the Mahayana School, had, as 
early as the third century a.p., eliminated the external world as a reality. 
But Bodhidharma carried Buddhist subjectivity to such a point that a veritable 
stupor comes over the mind as one tries to read the few works that are at- 
tributed to him. These writings are not numerous, as he was opposed to all lit- 
erary pursuits; and one of the worst influences which his teachings had was 
the destruction of learning in the monasteries, and the consequent condem- 
nation of innumerable monks to a totally inactive and useless existence.’ 

To the Liang Emperor Wu-ti, in answer to his question, “What is true 
merit?’’ Bodhidharma issaid to have replied: “ It consists in purity and enlight- 
enment, depth and completeness, and in being wrapped in thought while sur- 
rounded by vacancy and stillness. Merit such as this cannot be sought by 
worldly means.”’’ In order to live up to this doctrine, the Patriarch sat himself 
down before a blank wall and remained there in contemplation for nine years. 
Even the achieving of merit through good works, important in early Chinese 
Buddhism, was eliminated in so passive a system, and the aim of such efforts, 
the attaining of reward in an after life, also became unimportant. No real- 
ity, no action-content; surely a more subjective philosophy can scarcely be 
achieved, and certainly none more disdainful of the contributions of nature to 
the solution of life’s problems. 


Nevertheless by the middle of the T’ang dynasty the adherents of the Ch’an 


*Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 86. *Ibid., p. 101. 


[ 29 ] 


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sect had discovered that. the world was real, and under the influence of the 
Tao, had learned to see nature in a state of constant evolution. 

What, then, was the force which, metaphorically speaking, turned the head 
of Bodhidharma away from its concentration on nothingness, away from its 
absorption with itself? What forced the eyes of Buddhism out toward a con- 
templation of the universe and its wonders? It came to China wrapped in a 
mystic chrysalis of introspection, and not until it had encountered the ancient 
Chinese thought did it gradually awaken to a realization of the importance 
of environment. From the most extreme example of subjectivity that accepted 
consciousness as its only reality, China made an objective mentality that 
began to observe and to love the external world as she for three thousand 
years had observed and loved it. 

Not only did the Ch’an sect turn what, with the “ wall-gazing Brahman’’ 
in mind, can so justly be called a right about face, but Buddhism as a whole 
had adopted from its earliest appearance the very habits of life and the most 
characteristic institutions of China. For the Buddhists who, in their monas- 
teries or in more secular groups, lived by preference among the solitude and 
beauty of wooded mountain sides were but carrying on the traditions of the 
ancient hermit life of the Taoist recluses. The ‘“‘White Lotus Club,’’* for ex- 
ample, a small group of Buddhists who, under the leadership of the priest Hui- 
yan, retired during the fourth century to a remote and secluded life, was but 
an echo of “The Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove,”’ a group of extreme 
Taoists who had fled the haunts of man a century before. In fact, Hui-yiian, 
who was the founder of the ‘‘ Pure Land”’ sect of Amidism, had been a Taoist 
before his conversion and simply carried over into his Buddhist life the habits 
of mind and body that had been fixed in him by his Taoist training. 


"See page 93. 


sone 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


It may be objected—it has in fact been asserted by Buddhist scholars— 
that India also had its hermits, and that the hermit idea was brought to China 
with Buddhism. They go so far as to say that the withdrawal from community 
life of the “Four Hoary Men” in the third century B.c. is proof positive of an 
early Buddhist influence in China whose origin cannot be traced!’ But these 
good people seem not to know the story first told by Chuangtzi (fourth 
century B.c.),and repeated at length by Huang-fu Mi (third century a.p. ) 
in his “ Lives of the Scholar-recluses,” concerning the Emperor Yao (¢. 2356 
B.c. ) and his great friends, the hermits or scholar-recluses (Kao-shih), Hsii 
Yu and Tsao Fu. Weary of ruling and eager to retire to a more peaceful 
existence among the hills, Yao offered his throne to Hsiti Yu. This sage only 
roared with laughter and asked his Imperial Majesty whether he took him 
for a fool. When Hsii Yu recounted the emperor’s request to Tsao Fu, the 
latter, highly indignant at the idea of exchanging the beauty of a hermit life 
for the onerous weight of a crown, demanded of Hsii Yu, “Why be friendly 
with such a fellow?” and proceeded to a neighboring stream to wash the ear 
that had heard so nefarious a suggestion. With this amusing tale do the 
Chinese throw into their almost prehistoric period the whole Taoist ideal of 
seeking the perfect life amidst the suggestive surroundings of nature. Self- 
isolation in India was practised with the negative idea of avoiding the con- 
taminating touch of man, whereas in China the aim was the poetic and posi- 
tive one of seeking a contact with what they later termed the Tao; and this 
positive seeking, this affirmation rather than mere renunciation of life, is what 
the Buddhists learned in China. 

Living, then, as the ancient Taoists had lived and still continued to live, the 
new devotees of the “‘ Pure Land,” orof theCh’an sect, preserved their interest 


"See Mayers’ Reader’s Manual, Pt. II, No. 83. 


brSipg 


Chinese Painting 


in externality,and whatever contribution such Buddhists made to the develop- 
ment of Chinese landscape art was but a continuation of the indigenous regard 
for nature. To think of that feeling as being essentially Buddhist is not to recog- 
nize its power or profundity; for such depth of feeling could never have been 
suddenly evolved from a new-found faith, but could only have been attained by 
the slow and cumulative growth that China’s history reveals. The rhythms which 
the Chinese had learned through long ages of astral observation were not to 
be speedily forgotten under the onslaughts of a subjective religion; and it is a 
heartening thing to see that the victory in this struggle remained ever with the 
sane, objective naturalism of China as against the mystic mentality of India. 
If, indeed, within the tenets of Buddhism there had been a force that turned 
the mind out toward a realization of nature’s wonders, why did it not develop 
the art of landscape painting in other countries, in India itself, for example? To 
this, Japan is the obvious reply; but the Japanese were fortunate in receiving 
much of their Buddhism after the Chinese mentality had put its mark upon it, 
acquiring as they did with the Zen, as they call the Ch’an sect, not only one of 
their strongest religious movements, but much of their civilization with its noble 
continuation of Chinese painting, Chinese poetry, and Chinese philosophy. The 
development would seem too self-evident for serious analysis, had not Fenol- 
losa, through an admirable but misleading fidelity to his Buddhist teachers, 
seen the problem with such bias and such persuasiveness as to warp for many 
years the occidental understanding of China’s great cultural contributions. 
The form, then, of Chinese Buddhism was as much the product of their 
ancient naturalistic attitude toward life as were the ceremonies of Confucius 
and the evolutionary theories of Taoism, or, to turn to more material things, 
the Chou bronzes, the jades of Han, and lastly, in time if not in grandeur, 


the landscapes of T’ang and Sung. 
[ 32 ] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


IX 

Tuere remains only to be decided what the counter-influence of Buddhism 
may have been on the Chinese. Did it in any sense affect the integration of their 
religious and political thought, their careful adjustment of life to the environ- 
ment which the picture of China’s early culture presented? The idea suggests 
itself immediately that the unity of the ancient state, in which the emperor 
represented for all of his subjects the sacredness of Heaven itself, was gone 
forever, and politically there is no question that Buddhism divided and weak- 
ened the country and made it an easier prey for the ever threatening Tartar 
hordes. The dualistic conception of the universe which Buddhism brought 
with it also had its disastrous effect upon the mental integrity which the 
Chinese valued so highly. Such theories as that of metempsychosis gained a 
strong popular hold, superimposing upon their physical conception of the evo- 
lutionary process an elaborate system for the evolution of souls with which the 
Chinese had never, up to this point, confused their thinking. Soon after the 
spread of Buddhism in China, its ritual was borrowed and imposed upon Tao- 
ism, thus hastening the destruction of that philosophy by debasing it into a 
formal religion and encouraging all its weaker, popular phases at the expense 
of its noble contributions to human thought. But the effects of all these disrup- 
tive influences came after the time in which we are interested, and cannot be 
discussed here. What we must try to confine ourselves to, is the political and 
philosophical picture of China before the time of Li Lung-mien and after the 
time when Buddhism, as an organized institution, had developed into a factor 
to be reckoned with. 

It must above all things be kept in mind that, though Buddhism had an 
enormous following among the masses, it ever remained an intellectual study 


with most of the /iteratz. To the Chinese scholar Buddhism represented a new 


Esse) 


Chinese Painting 


and in many ways interesting metaphysical system which his unprejudiced 
mind found worthy of careful consideration; but the patterns of thought which 
two thousand years of custom had established for him remained unshaken. It 
is difficult for us who look upon religions as mutually exclusive methods for 
the saving of the soul to realize that a Confucian remained Confucian as far 
as the practical living of life was concerned, no matter how much of truth 
he recognized in other systems of thought. He fought gross superstitions 
which seemed to him to stultify the popular mind; but it is essentially to his 
credit that the serenity of his mood remained untouched, for the persecutions 
of Buddhism, of which we hear so much in the T’ang dynasty, were rarely on 
religious grounds. The broad-minded Confucian tolerance never opposed the 
spread of the new religion until its beliefs and institutions became a political 
menace to the state. Encouraged by weak emperors who hoped to sit more 
securely enthroned by pandering to this new faith of the people, strengthened 
by the temporary weakness during the Wei and Liang dynasties of the ancient 
rule of the sages, Buddhism had grown apace, and the monastic system which 
had sprung up soon after its first appearance in China had developed to such 
enormous dimensions that the practical and social-minded Confucians objected 
to supporting in idleness so many people who should be tilling the fields, rear- 
ing progeny, and otherwise carrying on the interests of the community. Espe- 
cially were they concerned lest the continuity of the family, the very heart of 
the Confucian state, should be threatened by the Buddhist ideal of celibacy. 
The religious persecutions, in other words, were purely social in character and, 
after they had taken place, left none of the animosity and bitterness that were 
aroused and perpetuated by the religious conflicts of the occidental world. 
It is, perhaps, easiest to understand the mental picture of the period if we 


turn for a moment to the consideration of actuality. When, in a.p. 627, the 


C 34 J 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


second T’ang Emperor, T’ai-tsung, had crushed the armies of the Hsiing-nu 
aggressors and once more forced obedience and order upon the rebellious 
and confused empire, there was as great a revival of the classics as in the time 
of the Hans. Although a Confucian, he gave the same consideration and free- 
dom to the Buddhists, and lent an equally willing ear both to the Zoroastrian 
and the Nestorian priests who came to his court in the early seventh century. 
So real was his interest in Buddhism that he encouraged the priest Yiian 
Chuang to go to India in a.p. 629 for the purpose of supplementing the lim- 
ited number of sutras which China then possessed. While thus demonstrating 
his tolerance, he made great social reforms based on Confucian doctrine, and 
increased the familiarity with the ancient classics by founding an academy for 
the study of literature and by reinstituting the ancient civil service examina- 
tions which every aspirant to public office or to the standing of a scholar had 
to take. 

The importance of these examinations can scarcely be underestimated if 
we consider how the whole life of the Chinese was thus concentrated until a 
very recent date upon the study of the ancient texts. Asa rule it is impos- 
sible to find the date of a Chinese painter’s or scholar’s birth, but the date 
when he passed his final examination, the Chin-shih, is seldom omitted. This 
was the moment when life really began, and the first memories of his child- 
hood must have been the preparation for this great event. It was the em- 
peror’s means of keeping in touch with his subjects, for his closest contact 
with his independent and liberty-loving people was through the examiners 
under whose observation at some time or other the whole of China’s cultivated 
manhood had to pass. The scholars may or may not have had an interest in 
Buddhism, but upon their knowledge of China’s ancient laws depended their 


status among their fellow-men. Foreign metaphysics might have many points 


Eat 


Chinese Painting 


of interest, but the business of life remained closely associated with the spe- 
cifically Chinese mode of thought. Thus does T’ai-tsung’s reign become a 
new cornerstone in the structure of China’s cultural history, for the fact that 
he gave the state a strong organization based upon Confucian law made pos- 
sible the tolerance which as a rule prevailed for the next five centuries, while 
the three different philosophical systems existed side by side with a constantly 
varying proportion of adherents. The emperor himself was the best type of 
Chinese heroic character, a wise and enlightened ruler, a great general, a stu- 
dent of the arts and literature, open-minded because he did not fear for his 
own firmly founded convictions, examining all things with candor and dis- 
crimination, furthering and assimilating what in them he saw of merit, but 
looking back to the past of his own people for that which would most surely 
serve those who were to follow. 

Since, as has been illustrated, the Chinese clung resolutely, throughout the 
Buddhist invasion and hundreds of years after Buddhism had become nothing 
but a half-remembered formula, to the Confucian forms for the conduct of 
life, is it not right to suppose that the mental processes behind these forms 
remained the same? The basis for their beliefs, their astronomical and nat- 
ural researches, was dimmed in the T’ang dynasty to the point where the 
Hindus, who had much later learned their science,’ ventured temporarily to 
criticize the Chinese calendar; but the immediate effects of that early delving 
into the physical mysteries guided them still with the unquestioned and invin- 
cible force of all those things whose roots lie deep in the rich and productive 
soil of our good earth. 

In Buddhism the objective Chinese met what, in its origins at least, was 
the most powerfully constructed exposition of the subjective point of view, 


*See De Saussure’s articles, T’oung Pao, Vols. IX, X. 


[ 36 ] 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


that type of mentality which seeks to find the wisdom of the world by occu- 
pying itself exclusively with its own functions; Buddhism attempted to sever 
the relations of its adherents with the material universe and, inasmuch as 
Chinese art rested upon the objective philosophy of the race, Buddhism threat- 
ened that art at its very foundation. It was a severe trial, and yet the most 
appropriate one that could have come to the Chinese in order that, through 
this juxtaposition of diametrically opposite points of view, they might achieve 
a new and strengthened love for the broad, the powerful, the contented men- 


tality of their ancestors. 


X 
W uar was the history of Confucianism and Taoism during this era of Bud- 
dhist expansion? Coincident with the spread of Buddhism, after the fall of the 
Han dynasty, came a revival of Taoism that was infinitely more important 
for the intellectual development of China. In fact, during the third and fourth 
centuries, Buddhism had to content itself with its numerous converts in the 
north, where Confucian scholars were too disorganized to oppose it, and in 
the west, where the Tartars welcomed the Indian culture which the Buddhist 
priests brought with them; for in the south, where Taoism held its sway, Bud- 
dhism could at first make no progress.’ Here the cultured classes were en- 
grossed with the teachings of Laotzti and Chuangtzi, while the populace was 
entranced with the magic side of Taoism that had been steadily growing in 

influence throughout the Han dynasty. 
This sudden outburst of all forms of Taoism was a natural and sharp re- 
action against the decadent formalism of Han. Confucian theory having once 
more become too dogmatic, the Taoists again asserted the principles of change 


*Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, pp. 91, 92. 


Eeupe 


Chinese Painting 


and the value of the individual to this process. They raised their old cry that 
all conventions are false;’ that only disorder and anarchy can result when 
speculative thinking is allowed to dominate natural law and natural living. 
By a new appeal to reality and by a fresh statement of the doctrine of indi- 
viduality they injected a new impulse into contemporary thinking, which re- 
sulted in an as yet unparalleled activity in the fields of literary and pictorial art. 

The manner in which Taoism and Confucianism interacted from the Han 
period onward to inspire and preserve the creative intelligence of China is 
the story that can be gleaned from a consideration of the work of Li Lung- 
mien. Both systems of thought battled for and against each other, and 
both were contending at the same time with the weaknesses inherent in 
each. It is at this point and with this dramatic unfolding as its major theme 
that the history of Li Lung-mien takes over the mental and artistic history 
of his race. 

Under the leadership of the House of T’ang, Confucianism once more de- 
monstrated its inner recuperative forces; for when all is said, the continuity 
of China was insured only by the latent power of this system to revive itself. 
To Buddhist, and especially Ch’an asceticism, so contradictory to the whole 
trend of Chinese life, it opposed a new austerity, and a simplicity that aimed 
not at abnegation but at achievement. It reaffirmed its old principles and re- 
vived its art and literature, but modified considerably its practice in political 
and intellectual affairs. It could reckon no better than in the Han and earlier 
dynasties with its inherent tendency to become overpoised in intellectual de- 
tachment; but centuries of constant study of the ancient texts had greatly 
multiplied the number of scholars, writers, and artists who supported, while 
they ornamented, the new official regime. Though it could never learn to 


* Chuangtzii, Chap. 2. 


[seul 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


lower its own standards through an artificial popularization, it could elevate 
to its standard so many valuable adherents that the new supremacy lasted 
for almost seven hundred years, if we except the fifty years (a.D. 907-960 ) 
that it took to change the House of T’ang for that of Sung. 

During the eleventh century, in which Li Lung-mien’s life mostly falls, 
Taoism was waning and Buddhism, except as a popular movement, was effete. 
As Edkins’ states it: “ Buddhism had had its trial and been found wanting,” 
and a new Confucianism was rising which frankly and liberally borrowed 
what best suited its theories from both the other systems. So broad and so 
sure of their hold did the Confucians become that many books were written 
to prove that all three faiths were essentially one and the same thing; but 
hand in hand with this eclecticism went a strong revival of scientific and philo- 
sophic research which resulted in a new and elaborately commentated edition 
of the Confucian texts and the ancient historical annals. The original works 
of this period were largely based upon the Yi Ching, or ‘‘ Book of Changes,”’ 
the cornerstone of Chinese antiquity. Chu Hsi ( a.p. 1130-1200 ) was perhaps 
the greatest of these Sung philosophers who helped thus to link their age 
intimately with the trend of classic thought; but the way had been prepared 
for him by such brilliant Confucian teachers as Chou Tun-i (A.D. 1017-1073), 
Chang Tsai (a.D. 1020-1067), and the brothers Ch’éng Hao (a.p. 1032- 
1085) and Ch’éng I (a.p. 1033-1107). In preparation for this renaissance, 
the work done in other fields, such as that of Li Lung-mien, had been of not 
a little help. There were many different types of Confucianism, as a closer 
examination of this period will reveal, nor was there any sharp antithesis be- 
tween the Confucians and the Taoists, for though both the political and philo- 


sophic aspects of life had had at times extremists in their ranks, most of the 


* Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 325. 


[ 39 ] 


Chinese Painting 


scholars of the Sung period thought along both channels, and we actually find 
men who, though bitterly opposed to each other politically, were the best of 
friends “among the rocks and streams” because they could always fall back 
upon their common Taoist thoughts and emotions as a basis for a continued 
affection. The momentous revival of Taoism and the reorganization of Confu- 
cianism after the Han dynasty is so clearly traced in the account of Li Lung- 
mien’s life that it may be left for later consideration; the Buddhist influence, 
on the other hand, had to be outlined, because Li Lung-mien emphasizes it 


so little and occidental critics have emphasized it so over-much. 


XI 
Tans cultural continuity in China was mirrored at all times in a many-sided 
productivity. Though it was occasionally submerged by the waves of social 
conflict, the artistic development in China from the nine sacred bronzes of the 
Hsids to the latest Sung and Ming landscape is as unbroken in conception 
and execution as is their philosophical, social, and political history; and all are 
expressions in different directions of that ancient and undying naturalistic 
philosophy through which they bound the ages each to each. The form of 
that expression in the domain of art was as evolutionary as were their beliefs, 
nor did it fail to profit by all foreign influences to which at different periods 
it was subjected. The Greeks and many other western nations sent their con- 
tribution in the Han dynasty, Persia and Khotan under the early T’angs, and 
Buddhism not only furthered these later contacts but, in its absorption by the 
Chinese mentality, may have brought new artistic vigor as the absorption of 
a foreign race brings physical vigor. But the spirit that dominated was the 


serene, earth-taught, earth-loving spirit of the great Chinese race with its 


[ 40 ] 


Re eh ey 
Eat ; 


scholars rhibox ne isgieaeng bok chanel aw 
men who, though yond ch te ply, the 
friends “ among the rocks and streams” because they could always fa 
upon heh commie aaa he ee ee oC iti 
affection. The momentous revival of Taoism and the reorgan of Con! 
cianism after the Han dynasty is so clearly traced in the account of a ung 
mien’s life that it may be left for later consideration; the E Auer 
on the other hand, had to be outlined, because Li Caniginietl 
so > ae and occidental critics have emphasized i it so 0 oversnuch, 


Kr 


XI 


productivity. Though it was occasionally submerged by the v way 
conflict, the artistic development in China from the nine sacred bt 
Hsias to the latest SungruaD Murolnawe | is as snbrokeoe 
and execution as is their philogyphardispial, and political histo r 3a rd 
expressions in different directions of that ancient and undying natu 
philosophy through which they bound the ages each to ea¢ e | 

- that expression in the domain of art was as evolutionary as were # — é 
nor did it fail to. profit by all foreign influences to which at different 
it was subjected. The Greeks and many other western nations s 
tribution in the Han dynasty, Persia and Khotan under thee 
Buddhism not only furthered these later contacts but, in its a 
Chinese mentality, may have brought new artistic beagle 
a foreign race brings physical vigor. But the spirit that « 
serene, earth-taught, earth-loving spirit of the great Chinese x 


[ 40 J 


The Philosophical Background of Li Lung-Mien 


never forgotten lessons of continuity, objectivity, productivity, and crafts- 
manship. 

When a T’ang or Sung artist depicted a landscape, he was not celebrat- 
ing a religion that denied the reality of the outer world, but he, like his many 
predecessors, was telling the philosophical history of his people, repeating the 
ancient story of the Chinese belief in the great beauty and the profound sig- 
nificance of nature in every manifestation. When he painted rocks and trees 
and wide bodies of water, he saw in them the evolution of life and of the 
world; he felt the eternal in the actual; he was painting his love of the past, 
his belief in the present, his hope for the future. He was reproducing in the 
subtlest artistic medium that only their fine belief in technique could ever have 
achieved, the deepest, the longest-tried faith in reality that the world has ever 
seen. The continuity and beauty of environment, the wisdom of an adjusted 
behavior, the need of an exquisite technique both for living and for the ex- 
pression of life, these, I think, are the main tenets of Chinese art and phi- 
losophy in the T’ang and Sung dynasties as at all times. 

Chinese art thus presents itself as racial rather than individual, as a formid- 
able continuity which linked an eleventh century painter, such as the one we 
are about to study, with the very dawn of his civilization, lending to his art 
the accumulated wisdom and power of the centuries as well as the serenity 
that comes from such unified and unbroken development. Small wonder, then, 
that he in turn devotes his thought and his skill to the glorification of that har- 
monious growth of which he feels himself exalted to be a part. When it is 
so impersonally interpreted, art becomes another vehicle for maintaining in 
the human intelligence that same continuity which Confucius had observed 
in organic life and, through ancestor-worship and ceremonial, had attempted 


to establish for the social structure. It becomes as truly as any one of these 


[41 ] 


Chinese Painting 


a preservative adjunct of the state, was, as we shall see, consciously that in 
the case of Li Lung-mien; and just as art served tradition, so tradition grad- 
ually enfolded the progress of art from every point of view. 

Therefore, it is more accurate, more explicative, to think of Chinese art as 
Confucian both in its origin and its development than to associate it, because 
of the many external and often more immediate influences, with the Buddhist 
or even the Taoist religion. The former brought its wealth of new material, 
and the latter, with its basic relationship to Confucian principles and its con- 
stant maintenance of renewed contacts with nature, was of great value as a 
continuous source of fresh inspiration; but the fundamental difference be- 
tween Chinese art and all other arts lies in this expression of a racial rather 
than of an individual point of view, in its unbroken evolution deliberately main- 
tained, and in its conscious effort to preserve the ideals and traditions of the 
nation. These aims are not Taoist—still less are they Buddhist; but they ex- 
hibit in full measure that ancient wisdom of China which, out of deference 
to the man who restated it, we call Confucianism. 

To judge, then, of the greatness of Li Lung-mien or of any Chinese artist, 
we must, from a study of his life and his works, decide in what measure he 
can be said to have forwarded these obligations, and to what extent his main 
purpose was enriched by contributory sources of inspiration. We must try to 
understand clearly the light in which this cultural heritage appeared to him, 
and what the different artistic reflections of this illumination of his mind may 
have been. If we can isolate these various influences in the case of a particular 
artist, we shall then be in a position to define in general the exact function 


of aesthetics in their social structure and the nature of its plastic results. 


C 42 ] 


THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF LI LUNG-MIEN 
; 

I Lune-mien must have loved obscurity as much as his illustrious prede- 
cessor Laotzu; for the historians that narrate at length the lives and 
deeds of his contemporaries are able to give but a meagre account 

of the man who is acknowledged by all of them as the greatest painter of his 
day. The records are uniformly respectful, very vague, and at times even inac- 
curate, so that it is unsafe to accept their statements without checking them 
in the autobiographical material which the catalogue of his paintings affords. 
When their innumerable repetitions have been eliminated and their facts as- 
sembled and verified, we have but a misty outline of an heroic figure; we see 
aman of ‘lofty aims and ideals” who had a “ transcendent way of living,”’ but 
what the aims and ideals may have been we do not know, nor are we much 
nearer to visualizing the transcendent manner of his life. To discern these with 
clarity we must resort to a study of his works, fortunately preserved for us in 
American collections, and to the descriptions, dates, and commentaries of his 
paintings as we find them scattered about in ancient catalogues and treatises 
on art. 

For when, as with the Chinese, the artist’s function is not confined to his 
expression of his sense of fact, but includes the recording, in the noblest possi- 
ble manner, of fact itself, when the artist thus becomes, in addition, an eclec- 
tic historian, it is fair to assume that those deeds and beliefs of his race which 
appeared to him as most worthy of commemoration will reflect to a great ex- 
tent the spiritual image of his own countenance. Not only can we apprehend 
the direction of his ideals through his choice of subject, but happily we find 
many of the paintings accompanied by essays and poems, giving exact and 


varied information, written sometimes by the artist himself, more often by 


[43 J] 


Chinese Painting 


one of the small group of literary men that were his most intimate associates ; 
often, too, the paintings were done as illustrations of the text by which they 
are accompanied, ancient philosophic or poetical dissertations that reveal to us 
what this artist venerated most highly amongst their rich store of wisdom and 
beauty. From this material, from the paintings with their inscriptions as we 
still have them, and from the much more voluminous records of paintings we 
have never seen, we can reconstruct, in a measure, his relationship to the re- 
ligious, political, and intellectual interests of the times, the standards which he 
set himself and his family, his mode of living, and the kind of friends he pre- 
ferred, whether among his contemporaries or among that shadowy host of 
long dead heroes whose memory was so real to him, whose influence so im- 
mediate, that they must surely have vied in his affections with the living pres- 
ences by which he was surrounded. 

And since his pictures are of all ages and all varieties of subject, since he 
painted with the same love the incidents of his intimate surroundings and those 
of the grandest and most heroic moments of the past,we deriveas a by-product 
of our interest in Li Lung-mien the very flavor of Chinese life. Its frailties are 
portrayed with a humorous understanding and a broad-minded acceptance of 
the weaker side of human nature; and ashe acknowledges weakness, so, also, 
without prejudice he recognizes strength wherever he may find it. He makes 
no pleas of a political or religious nature, but depicts whatever he finds of beauty 
and of truth with the impartiality of one who is beyond good and evil. Since 
many of his paintings, like those of all Chinese artists, are copies, the compre- 
hensive study of one man’s work gives us something all-embracing, something 
typical, so that in knowing intimately the work of a universal genius like 
Li Lung-mien, one may accurately appreciate who, as a whole, the Chinese 


painters were, and what, in the main, Chinese painting really was about. 


[ 44 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


II 

Tue period of Li Lung-mien’s adult life (1070-1106) was a particularly 
trying one for the scholars and statesmen of the day. From a military point 
of view these years were comparatively peaceful; the annual subsidy of silk 
and silver which had been paid the Khitan hordes was still having its tran- 
quilizing effect, and the power of the Chin or Golden Tartars* had not yet 
developed sufficiently to disturb the equilibrium of the empire. The grandeur 
of the Sung dynasty was unquestioned, nor had the nation become aware of 
that inner weakness which was so soon to cause the loss of half the dominion 

to the irresistible force and numbers of its northern foes. If life was pleasantly 
) free of military aggression, it was, politically speaking, the scene of violent 
combat, for the young and energetic Emperor Shén-tsung ( 1068-1085 ), upon 
coming to the throne, immediately appointed as premier the great Confucian 
reformer Wang An-shih (1021-1086 ), who had for many years been strug- 
gling to overturn the economic organization of his country. His ideas were 
of a sort to challenge the ancient independence of spirit; he advocated strict 
government control of commerce, industry, and agriculture, with the resulting 
necessity to fix wages and prices; he urged a land-tax graduated according 
to the fertility of the soil, an old age pension, unemployment insurance, and 
a minimum wage. All these ideas, which seem so modern to us, were strictly 
in accord with Confucian tenets and had in part been promulgated as far back 
as the Han dynasty; but they implied strong centralization of the government 
powers, called for a much heavier taxation, and challenged the deeply in- 
grained Chinese belief that man is freest and happiest when he is least aware 


of the emperor’s existence. The entire official world was sharply divided into 


*See De Mailla’s Histoire de la Chine, Vol. VII, for an account of the Tartar movements. Also Parker’s 
A Thousand Years of the Tartars, Bk. VII. 


[ 45 J 


Chinese Painting 


two bitterly hostile camps; both parties were honestly striving in true Confucian 
spirit for the welfare of the people, but differed as to whether greater central 
control with higher taxes orthe old loosely organized government with its mild 
levies were the better system. The opposition was headed by the eminent his- 
torian Sst-ma Kuang, and had in its ranks the greatest scholars and literary 
men of the period. Among them were three of Li Lung-mien’s closest friends, 
the poet Su Tung-p’o, who was the intellectual leader of the period, his almost 
equally talented brother Su Ché, and the essayist and critic Huang Shan-ku. 
As such a powerful opposition too effectually hampered his efforts at reform, 
Wang An-shih used drastic methods to attain his ends, and in 1070-71 had all 
his enemies either banished or removed from office, with the result that the em- 
pire was temporarily denuded of most of its intellectual strength. For six years 
he strove to put his theories into effect ; but in 1074 the very populace for which 
he labored murmured against him, and having lost the confidence of the em- 
peror, he was obliged in his turn to leave the court for the province of Chiang- 
ning (Nanking ), of which he was made the governor. The banished anti- 
reform party now began to return to the capital, and from 1076 until long after 
Wang An-shih’s death in 1086, political history consisted of the rapid alterna- 
tion of the two parties, with the repeated banishment of the side that was tem- 
porarily the weaker. No man was certain of his position from one day to the 
next, and any moment might see his removal to some distant province. Often 
the political situation was used to serve personal enmities, and so acute did the 
vindictiveness become that the Emperor Hui-tsung, in 1102, was persuaded 
by the reform party to erect a stone tablet at one of the main entrances of 
the palace on which were cut the names of its most powerful enemies, one 
hundred and twenty “bad officers” of all grades, among them Li’s friends, 


Tung-p’o and Huang Shan-ku. All the intellectuals of China were exiled, 


[ 46 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


their works were burned, and the possessor of so much as a line of their writ- 
ings was severely punished. 

Li Lung-mien had passed the civil service examination ( Chin-shih) in 1070, 
and consequently was in government employ while this political battle raged, 
but his office was a very minor one and did not oblige him to take sides in the 
questions of the day. During all the turmoil there is not the slightest trace of 
partisanship in his conduct, and in spite of the hatred that existed between the 
two factions, we find him on the friendliest terms with the leaders of both. 
His was the type of mentality that preferred to hold itself aloof from the po- 
litical vexations of the moment; but the integrity of his character must have 
been utterly unassailable if, in the heat of such a life-and-death struggle, he 
could remain sufficiently above the rancor and the slander to retain, as he did, 
the affectionate esteem of all concerned. 

Of his friendship with the anti-reform leaders, Tung-p’o and Huang 
Shan-ku, we shall speak at length later; itis enough to say here that their deep 
mutual respect lasted as long as their lives, was stronger than banishment, 
stronger even than death. In spite of this close relationship with members of 
the opposition, there was great sympathy between Li, the artist and man of let- 
ters, and Wang An-shih, premier, politician, and social economist. Though the 
venerable statesman must have been by almost thirty years Li Lung-mien’s 
senior, he wrote poems in praise of Li and did him the signal honor of pay- 
ing him a visit, an especially noteworthy act in this instance, as Wang was 
notoriously contemptuous of his fellow-men. It is recorded in the Hsiian-ho 
catalogue that “Wang An-shih in selecting his friends gave his approval very 
grudgingly. Yet he went tovisit Kung-lin in the Chung Mountains [Kiangsu ], 
and when he left, Li wrote four poems to bid him farewell which were much 


admired by Wang.”’ It is indicative of Li’s attitude toward the great minister, 


Ages 


Chinese Painting 


and no doubt the secret of their esteem, that when he paints his portrait, as 
he did on at least two occasions,’ he makes no reference to the pomp of posi- 
tion nor to his character of militant reformer, but pictures the statesman off 
duty as he daily rambled, mounted on a donkey, through the Chung Moun- 
tains; or he depicts him travelling yet further on his gentle beast, through 
the forest-hung hills, as far as the monasteries of Fa-yiin and Ting-lin, where, 
amidst the beauty of the out-of-doors and the peaceful silence of monastic 
life, he sought to forget the problems and cares of his active existence. On 
journeys such as these the aged statesman and the young artist felt them- 
selves on common ground, and no doubt it seemed obvious to both that this 
love of nature might inspire one man to construct a new social system, while 
it led another to depict with brush and ink the eternal truths that spoke to 
him in every rock and rill. 

Just how old Li Lung-mien was when he passed his official examination 
in 1070 we do not know, as this is the first of his dates that the biographers 
thought worthy of record, but judging from the average age at which the 
scholars took the examinations, it is safe to say that he was at that time at 
least twenty-five. He was born in Shu-ch’éng, the province of Anhui, where 
his family had long been prominent, because his ancestors for generations had 
been literary men. It is equally true that the family must have been wealthy, 
an item too material to be mentioned by the Chinese scholars, but quite evi- 
dent from the fact that his father, Hsii-yi, was a collector of paintings and 
calligraphies, and that Li had an even larger collection of jades, bronzes, 
and paintings, all of which were very costly even in the Sung dynasty— 
comparatively speaking, more so than to-day; and again the numerous pur- 
chases of land which we find Li and other members of his family making, 


“Category II, Nos. 66, 67. 


[ 48 J 


a ee ee a ae 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


with no indication whatever of any remunerative occupations other than gov- 
ernment positions which could not have been lucrative, show marked free- 
dom from money cares. He had a brother and a cousin who enjoyed a repu- 
tation for scholarship almost equal to his own, the former being known espe- 
cially for his literary style, the latter for his calligraphy, the three together 
being often referred to as “the Three Lis of Lung-mien”’ from the fact that 
they were all domiciled near Lung-mien Hill, so called from the resemblance 
of its contour to that of a sleeping dragon.’ 

The name, Li Lung-mien, however, refers always to the artist, an appella- 
tion which he chose for himself in honor of his home among the hills; his 
real name, the one by which he would familiarly be called, was Li Po-shih, 
the one he faced the world with, Li Kung-lin. Among his favorite signatures 
is Lung-mien Chii-shih, the scholar-recluse of Lung-mien; for as a Chinese 
gentleman loves best his leisure, especially after his retirement from public 
life, so also he loves best the name by which he styles himself when his re- 
tirement has been accomplished, or even long before, when he has begun to 
live in the definite hope of achieving that happy end. Though Li Lung-mien 
continued in government service until 1100, he purchased his Lung-mien 
“cottage for retirement” in ‘Y 077, as we find him later stating on his painting 
of that subject ;* and as early as 1080 and 1081, and possibly earlier though it 
is not on our records, we find him signing his picture of “ Laotzt Delivering 
the Tao Té Ching,’’* “Lung-mien Chii-shih Li Kung-lin,” and in 1083 on 
the ‘‘ Lohans Crossing the Sea,” we find another form, ‘‘ Lung-mien Shan-jén 
Li Kung-lin,” whereby he describes himself as the mountain-loving man of 


* Category V, No. 6. The name ‘‘ Li of the Dragon Face’’ used by Giles and other occidental writers is an 
incorrect reading of the character ‘‘ mien ”’ (HA) , which means ‘‘sleeping,”’ the character ‘¢ mien”? (  ), 
for face, being quite different. 


* Category V, No. 14. * See illustration No. 15. 


[ 49 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Lung-mien. Most often, however, he calls himself Chii-shih,or hermit-scholar, 
a term of Buddhist origin, indicating, during the fourth and fifth centuries, a 
man well versed in Buddhist laws and principles who has not taken the monas- 
tic vows. After the middle of the sixth century Confucian scholars began oc- 
casionally to add the title to the cognomens which they invariably gave them- 
selves in later life, this perfectly general use of the suffix coming much in vogue 
among scholars of the T’ang and especially the Sung dynasties. The term 
then lost its Buddhistic significance and merely implied that the man who so 
styled himself wished to indicate that though he lived in the world, he was 
in no sense of it, that he carried with him into the very market-place such a 
silence “‘as should hold him to its revelations’’ even amidst the affairs of men. 
From this significance it became a mere title to denote the scholar, and, as the 
upper classes consisted of scholars, one that was in common use. Li signed his 
work inan apparently arbitrary manner, and no conclusions as to dates of paint- 
ings or other information can be gathered from his signatures, for even the 
simple Li Po-shih, found on many of the early paintings, was frequently affixed 
to the products of his old age. 


III 
Or all the biographical records of Li Lung-mien, the Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u’ is 
the most definite in its facts; as it became the basis of many later accounts, 
its information covers that of practically all other such sources. It lists Lung- 
mien as a civil officer and then proceeds: 
“His father Hsii-yi was at one time recommended to the emperor as worthy of appoint- 


ment to the Order of Virtuous, Good, and Upright Men. He then served the govern- 


ment in the capacity of Assistant to the Grand Court of Revision and was subsequently 


*Chap..7, p. 5 b. 


Tye tenga, 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


rewarded with the honorary title of the Fourth Grade of the Second Class. He was fond 
of collecting standard calligraphies and famous paintings. Kung-lin studied all these 
and, while yet a youth, began to understand the techniques of the ancients in handling 
the brush. Accordingly his calligraphy, both the text and the semi-running hand, 
showed the influence of the Chin and Sung [ a.p. 265-479 | styles; in painting, espe- 
cially, he has perhaps been unexcelled and his works have been treasured by the world. 

“He was a man of wide learning, critical acumen, and great penetration. When he 
first took to painting he studied Ku K’ai-chih, Lu T’an-wei, Chang Séng-yu,and Wu 
Tao-tzti as well as all other works of famous artists of the past. When he had thus en- 
riched his mind, he appropriated all the good points of the old masters, and using them 
according to his own ideas, founded an entirely new school. Judging from his works, 
he does not seem to have plagiarized the paintings of his predecessors, but he undoubt- 
edly modelled his style on their strong points. Whenever he came across a painting, 
ancient or modern, he would make a copy and keep it; therefore his house was full of 
famous examples of almost every style or school. 

“He was especially skilful at figure painting. Any one looking at his human figures 
would readily recognize whether they came from the royal court, from the official ranks, 
or from mountain and forest; or whether they were of the common people, of the ser- 
vile class, or of the official couriers. Their manners, gestures, expressions, their use of 
limbs and body, the inclination forward or backward, their size and appearance, whether 
they hailed from the east, west, south, or north, as well as their ability and place in the 
social scale; he could give each of these attitudes a nice distinction quite unlike the or- 
dinary painters who lend to all figures a monotonous uniformity and make distinctions, 
if any, between persons of high position and plebeian origin, or between those of attrac- 
tive and those of hideous appearance, merely by means of the ‘thick red and thin black’ 
contrivance. 

“Generally speaking, Kung-lin considered the idea as the element of supreme im- 
portance and subordinated the composition and the decorative features to it. The com- 


monplace artist might be able to imitate his fine and careful style, but when he used 


Bes bee 


Chinese Painting 


his careless, rather sketchy and easy manner, they could never approach him. Evidently 
he had athorough understanding of the art of Tu Fu in writing poetry and applied it 
to his paintings. For instance, Tu Fu, in writing a poem on “Tying up the Fowls,’’ did 
not concentrate on ‘the loss or gain of the fowls and insects,’ but on the moment when 
the poet stands against the balcony on the hill, with his eyes fixed in contemplation 
upon the cold river; similarly Kung-lin, in painting a picture of T’ao Ch’ien’s [ Yiian- 
ming | ‘Homeward Let Me Turn,’’ did not lay much stress on Tao’s ‘field, garden, pine, 
and chrysanthemums,’ but on the moment when “he composes poetry beside the clear 
flowing water.’ Again, Tu Fu wrote a poem deploring the fact that his thatched hut 
was torn up by the autumn wind. But he did not so much take to heart the ragged con- 
dition of his coverlets or the leaks in his hut, as the wretchedness of all poor scholars 
throughout the world, over whom he would like to extend a vast protecting wing so that 
he might see their faces grow happy. So too Kung-lin, in making a picture of the Yang- 
kuan Pass,’ thought that farewells and outbursts of sorrow were commonplace demon- 
strations of feeling, and instead of these, he depicted an angler, quietly seated, apparently 
forgetful of the external world and showing not the least concern over the scenes of sor- 
row and joy that are being enacted close by. All other works of his were done more or 
less in the same manner. It rests with the person who is looking at one of his paintings 
to discover its idea. 

“In his novel way of presenting things he was like Wu [ Tao-tzii ], in his love of 
nature like Wang Wei; that is to say, his painting of the figures in his Buddhavatam- 


‘Tu Fu’s poem on ‘‘ Tying up the Fowls’’ is an admonition to keep the mind beyond all thoughts of the 
struggle for existence through contemplation of the serener side of nature. 


‘¢ My servant-lad tied up the fowls to sell them in the market ; 
Agonized by the fastenings, oh, how they cry in protest! 
My family loathe them because they feed upon the ants and insects; 
Yet they forget that the fowls, when sold, will also serve as food. 
Insects or fowls, why should we become the partisans of either? 
Peremptorily, I order the lad to untie the fowls and give them freedom. 
Alas! the struggle between fowls and insects can never cease ; 
And I, leaning against my hill-side balcony, gaze at the cold and silent river.’’ 


* For this poem see page 142. ~ * Category II, No. 70. 


Rey a 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


saka Council was comparable to that in the fantastic scenes of Wu’s Purgatory, and 
the painting of his homestead in the Lung-mien Hills was not inferior to Wang’s pic- 
ture of his country home. To make these paintings, he abstracted the finest points from 
the masters of former generations and made them thoroughly his own. Thus it is no 
wonder that his works are so much above the ordinary. However, a great number of 
his paintings have had a wide circulation, and everybody can find an opportunity to 
examine them personally. 

“At first Kung-lin was fond of painting horses, generally after the style of Han Kan; 
a certain priest [ Tao-jén | advised him not to make it a practice to paint horses, fear- 
ing that some day he might fall into the ways of the horse. Kung-lin heeded the advice 
and took to painting Taoist and Buddhist objects with even greater skill. 

“ At one time he had made pictures of the horses in the imperial stables, such as the 
“Good Red-Headed Horse’ and the ‘Brocade Shouldered Steed,’ which were presented 
by the Khotanese of the Western Region. The grooms, fearing that the copies might 
be spirited away, begged for the pictures and thus it was that Li first got his reputa- 
tion as a painter of horses. 

“When he was holding his official position and living in the capital [ K’ai Féng-fu, 
Honan |, for a period of ten years he never once entered the house of an influential man 
or one of high rank. Whenever he could absent himself from his oficial duty, weather 
permitting, he would sally forth from the city; carrying wine and accompanied by two 
or three men of his own turn of mind, he would visit famous gardens and shaded for- 
_ ests; then seated on some rock, with flowing water before them, they would feel divinely 
happy the whole long day. During that period men of wealth and honor that desired 
to possess some works from his brush often showed him courtesies and expressed a wish 
to befriend him, but Kung-lin stubbornly maintained his cold reserve and would not 
return their advances. Yet he never tired of going about with scholars of worth, though 
they might be perfect strangers to him, and for them he would wield his brush with- 
out the least show of reluctance. 


“He drew pictures also of ancient objects, such as the jade tablet “Kuei,’ the jade ring 


Lebo 


Chinese Painting 


‘Pi, and the like. In doing this he would study the real history of every name with all 
details so that his representations might show no inaccuracy. 

“His official life lasted about thirty years; and during all that time he never even 
for a day forgot the spell of mountains and forests. Consequently he painted from the 
pictures stored up in his mind. In old age he was afflicted with rheumatism, but between 
groans he would still lift his hand and with his finger draw upon his coverlet just as if 
he were applying a brush. Warned by the members of his family to desist, he would 
smile, saying: “This is a bit of old habit that has not yet been swept clean. I do it quite 
unconsciously.’ Such was his fondness for painting. 

“'W hen hisillness had somewhat lessened, people again importuned him with requests 
for paintings. Kung-lin sighed and said to them: ‘In making my paintings my pur- 
pose is like that of the poet who writes a poem, to sing my innermost feelings and to 
celebrate nature. How is it that people fail to understand this and seek my pictures just 
for their entertainment?’ After this, whenever he made a painting to give away as a 
present, he would embody in it a bit of warning or advice, his idea being the same as 
that of Chiin-p’ing,’ who made fortune-telling his business with the purpose of lectur- 
ing his clients on the causes of good and bad fortune, hoping thereby to make them do 
good deeds. 

“After his death it was even more difficult to obtain his paintings and some people 
paid heavily for them in gold and silk. In consequence many tried hard to copy him, 
or by making paintings in his style, to reap profits from these imitations. People with 
little knowledge of the art of painting were often taken in, but these forgeries could not 
escape detection by the sharp eyes of the connoisseurs. 

“In official rank he rose to Ch’ao-Féng-Lang.’ Then he resigned,’ and died at home.‘ 
Evenat the present time, scholars and those in official life, through thelength and breadth 


of the land, out of respect for his fame, would not refer to him by his official name.’ He 


* Chiin-p’ing, i.e., Yen Tsun (first century B.c.), a native of Ch’éng-tu, Sstich’uan. He was a gifted scholar 
who chose to live a secluded life in the Ssiich’uan hills, earning a modest livelihood through fortune- 
telling. He wrote a commentary on Laotzti which has been preserved only in quoted fragments. 


* An honorary title of the Second Class, Sixth Grade. ‘A.Del LOO; *a.d. 1106. * Kung-lin. 


[ 54] 


see 


are 
or Pye 
ef; 


wee’ 


aS rs 
; : 


PRR ay 


oe 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


was universally known by his by-name,’ and he also styled himself ‘Lung-mien Chii- 
shih.’ 


“To sum up the things in which Kung-lin was strongest, we find that his literary 


style resembled the Chien-an period | a». 19¢—220 |; in handwriting his style resem- 
bled that of the periods Chin and Sung [{ a.0. 265-479 |; in painting he fully reached the 
standards of Ku K’ai-chih and Lu T’an-wei; and ae 0 the study of bronze bells,caldrons, 
and other ancient objects, he showed such an extensive knowledge and powerful memory 
that he had no equal in his time. Quite recently there came into the possession of Tuan 
Yi’ an imperial seal of jade which he presented to the emperor. Nobody could make out 
what it was, but Kung-lin solved the problem much te the admiration and respect of 
all the scholars of the day. However, as he remained varied away in the ranks of inferior 
| officers, law and etiquette prevented his name from beng heard and thus he has become 
famous only for his painting. But here we must give the full details of his life. 
“His paintings now in the imperial collection number one hundred and seven titles.” 


The account in tie fis ian-ho Hua-pgifi®® soul aH’ Feretion and descrip- 
tion of these works. (Iv aTAdq) 


Iv 
Whrer the chronicler observes that Li Lung-mien ’s inferior rank kept his 
fame as a scholar from spreading, he is excusing the limited nature of his in- 
ae formation, due no doubt to Kung-lin’s modesty and constantly sustained reti- 
cence, or the author must have been ultra~Confucian in his thinking, for ini 
_ the Sung dynasty archaeological knowledge conferred upon its possessor 
a greater distinction than high government position. It was customary for 
emperors to appoint a great scholar to any high office; and Li could no doubt 
have profited by this custom, had he ever desired such rewards. 
"Li Lung-mien. i 
* * Tuan Yi, an unimportant villager whom history memisonr only because of the discovery of this jade. 
; ( 58 3 


colt 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


was universally known by his by-name,! and he also styled himself ‘Lung-mien Chii- 
shih.’ 

“To sum up the things in which Kung-lin was strongest, we find that his literary 
style resembled the Chien-an period [ a.p. 196-220 ]; in handwriting his style resem- 
bled that of the periods Chin and Sung [ a.p. 265-479 |; in painting he fully reached the 
standards of Ku K’ai-chih and Lu T’an-wei; and as to the study of bronze bells, caldrons, 
and other ancient objects, he showed such an extensive knowledge and powerful memory 
that he had no equal in his time. Quite recently there came into the possession of ‘Tuan 
Yi’ an imperial seal of jade which he presented to the emperor. Nobody could make out 
what it was, but Kung-lin solved the problem much to the admiration and respect of 
all the scholars of the day. However, as he remained buried away in the ranks of inferior 
officers, law and etiquette prevented his name from being heard and thus he has become 
famous only for his painting. But here we must give the full details of his life. 


“His paintings now in the imperial collection number one hundred and seven titles.” 


The account in the Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u ends with an enumeration and descrip- 


tion of these works. 


IV 

Wrauen the chronicler observes that Li Lung-mien’s inferior rank kept his 
fame as a scholar from spreading, he is excusing the limited nature of his in- 
formation, due no doubt to Kung-lin’s modesty and constantly sustained reti- 
cence, or the author must have been ultra-Confucian in his thinking, for in 
the Sung dynasty archaeological knowledge conferred upon its possessor 
a greater distinction than high government position. It was customary for 
emperors to appoint a great scholar to any high office; and Li could no doubt 
have profited by this custom, had he ever desired such rewards. 


* Li Lung-mien. 


* Tuan Yi, an unimportant villager whom history mentions only because of the discovery of this jade. 


Reta 


Chinese Painting 
This biography alludes but lightly to the well-known story that Li at some 


time in his life turned Buddhist and renounced his horse painting for the exclu- 
sive portrayalof Buddhist deities. Theimperial cataloguers, with the usual catho- 
licity of the Confucian mind, have added Taoist paintings, but as a rule this oft- 
told tale is supposed to prove conclusively the Buddhist turn of Li’s mind; and 
since this story of Li Lung-mien’s conversion (and very little else ) has been so 
often and so credulously repeated in the occidental literature on Chinese art, 
it may be well to lay the ghost by quoting its originator, the Buddhist priest 
Hui-hung, a contemporary of Li’s, as he tells it in the Léng-chai Yeh-hua.’ 


“Li Po-shih was skilful in painting horses. In rating his style in this kind of painting, 
Tung-p’o considered him not below Han Kan. It is comparatively easy to obtain gold in 
the capital, but to obtain one of Po-shih’s horse paintings is almost an impossibility. 
The Master [| Fa-hsiu |chided him one day, saying: ‘Po-shih, you ought to be ashamed 
that you, as a man of the gentry, should permit yourself to be known as a painter. 
Worse than that, you paint horses! Does your conscience not hurt you?’ Indignantly 
Po-shih retorted : “I do not see why painting horses should necessarily deprave a man’s 
mind and send him into an evil life-path.’ “Well, replied the Master, ‘now that you 
have become so proficient in this kind of painting, you will, of necessity, muse day and 
night upon the nature and form of the horse, and aim at catching its noble expression 
and spirit. With your whole mind riveted upon this, there can be absolutely no doubt 
that one day, when the light of your eyes sinks into the earth, you will find yourself 
in the womb of a horse. Is that not the evil life-path?’ 

“Greatly startled, Po-shih quite unconsciously stood up from the couch on which he 
was sitting and asked, ‘What can I do to remedy my fault?’ The Master then told 
him to paint nothing hereafter but images of the Kuan-yin Bodhisattwa. Since then his 
painting of this Bodhisattwa reached the acme of skill. And the nobility and officials of 
the time gave the Master much credit for his ingenuity and skill.” 


*Bk. VII, p. 7b. 


[ 56 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


Of the ingenuity and skill of the story there is no doubt; it became so con- 
vincing, especially after the usual Chinese repetitions, that the simple device 
of checking it up with fact has never occurred to anybody. Had any one taken 
this trouble, he would immediately have discovered from the dates on the 
paintings that this is not history but simply one of those numerous legends 
which the Chinese have attached to the names of many of their painters.’ In 
the catalogue we see that most of Li’s famous Buddhist pictures, such as the 
“White Lotus Club,” ‘‘ Tossing the Patra,” and “The Assembly on the Sea,”’ 
were done as early as 1080 and 1083; and at least one set of Lohan portraits’ 
was signed in 1079; on the other hand, several of the horse paintings are 
dated 1090 or later,’ a copy of Han Kan’s “Training of Horses by the Keeper 
of the Imperial Stud’”’ having been done* as late as 1103. Moreover we have 
Huang Shan-ku’s word for it, in one of his poems, that Lung-mien in his old 
age was even more skilful in painting horses than in his youth.’ 

From the many dated paintings we can see that Lung-mien’s most pro- 
ductive age was from 1080 to 1090, or it may even be possible that he had 
more the habit of dating his paintings during that decade, but from the com- 
parison of twenty-four dates that seem reliable, it is evident that he painted 
landscapes as well as Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist subjects in 1081 and 


236 


1082; in 1083 and 1084 he does a painting of “horse nature,’”® together with 
the Buddhist Lohans’ “ Assembly on the Sea”’;’ in 1085 he illustrates Con- 
fucius’ “‘ Book of Filial Piety,’’* and soon thereafter does portraits of all his 
contemporaries on a picnic in the “Western Garden”’;’ in 1086 we find him 


collaborating with Su Shihon some landscapes” and making educational picto- 


*See pages 231-232. * Category III, No. 33. * Category II, No. 45. *Category I, No. 15. 
*dvid., No. 22: *Ibid., No. 24. "Category HI, No. 10. 
* Category II, No. 13. *Ibid., No. 12. * Category V, No. 18. 


57 2) 


Chinese Painting 


rial descriptions of China’s tributary states;* in 1087 he paints the royal archers 
practising on flying horses;* in 1088 he does several horse and Buddhist paint- 
ings in the same year;* and after that the horses seem rather to preponder- 
ate, for after 1091, the year in which he does “T’ao Yiian-ming’s Inebriation 


294 


and Sleep,’’* the only additional dates that are given are those of three horse 
paintings.’ Judging from such a pell-mell succession of various subjects, Li 
felt no mental conflicts arising from his many different interests; and surely 
the fear of metempsychosis could not have been so real to him as the often 


repeated and utterly unfounded Buddhist accounts of it would have us believe. 


V 

I Fit is not possible to disposeof Li Lung-mien’s religious convictions sosimply, 
how are we to place him? To unravel the tortuosities of so complex a men- 
tality as that of a Sung scholar is not an easy task, but it must be attempted 
before we can grasp the character of his work and its relationship to the daily 
life of the period. We have always known that Chinese art is the product 
of three different influences: namely, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism; 
and surely one of the safest ways of understanding the force and quality of 
these rival philosophies is to determine how each, at a given period, presented 
itself to a single individual. 

That Li Lung-mien was a very learned Confucian scholar there is no doubt. 
He is so classified in histories and biographies, but his Confucianism is equally 
evident from his thirty years of service in government positions, from his 
many famous illustrations which glorify Confucian texts, and from the por- 


* Category IV, No. 4. * Category I, No. 7. * Ibid., Nos. 10, 19, 40. Category III, No. 4. 
“Category II, No. 63. * Category I, Nos. 12, 15. Category II, No. 45. 


Datates 


1 
; 
4 
| 
‘ 
| 
By 
4 
| 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


trayals of historical events that are no less Confucian in spirit. In the second 
category, the largest division of the catalogue, there are seventy-three num- 
bers—and every one of these celebrates China’s historical or philosophical 
development. The illustrations for the ‘‘ Book of Filial Piety,’* for example, 
are not more Confucian in their teachings than those for the “ Historical Facts 


292 


concerning the Relations between Emperors and their Subjects’’? or the many 
paintings of that philosopher so beloved by all Chinese scholars, T’ao Yiian- 
ming.’ For any painting that preserved a record of that which was of value 
in the past, whether a classic by Confucius himself, or the loyalty that had 
existed between the Son of Heaven and his subjects, or the literature and mode 
of life of a fourth century philosopher, or merely the work of some earlier 
artist, that painting in its purposeful pursuit of a cultural continuity can justly 
be described as Confucian. For this reason we can so designate the whole of 
the first, second, and fourth categories, as well as many of the paintings in 
the religious and landscape divisions of which the incentive or the subject- 
matter stresses the moral or the hereditary aspect. As Kung-lin’s paint- 
ings had, according to our quotation from the Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u, ‘‘a very 
wide circulation’ and were in some instances‘ “studied in every house and 
home,” he was able to give a greater effectiveness than we now realize to the 
ideals which he tried to inculcate. That his aim was often frankly didactic, 
he himself states in a note that accompanies the illustrations for Confucius’ 
“Book of Filial Piety.”* A friend, who urged him to take up this work, said 
to him: “‘If you can depict the facts and show your pictures to the people, 
they cannot fail to do some good,” and Kung-lin adds that thus encouraged 
he proceeded to the task. 


*Category II, No. 13. * Ibid., No. 8. * Ibid., Nos. 23, 73. 
‘ Ibid., No. 23. ° Ihid., No. 13. 


bee 4 


Chinese Painting 


Even to-day we cannot read the descriptions of this group of paintings with- 
out deeply admiring the traditions of the Chinese and their unceasing efforts 
to maintain them. It must be emphasized, moreover, that most of these stories 
which we find Lung-mien illustrating were not recondite historical subjects 
but the commonest school-book tales that every child could tell. Let us now 
consider a few of them with some detail. 

In his Confucian mood, it is not surprising to find Li Lung-mien’s mind 
occupied with a portrayal of the perfect state, of that blissful period which 
all the early Confucians carried about in their hearts, when intercourse be- 
tween the emperor and his subjects was of the freest, when ministers were 
all wise and loyal, and citizens all happy and contented. It is a subject which 
contrasts interestingly with the Greek vision as expressed in Plato’s “‘ Repub- 
lic” by the simplicity of its aims and the practical measures suggested for 
their attainment. In comparisons of this sort we are made to realize how direct 
the thinking of the Chinese was, and what a superb economy of means charac- 
terizes not only the organization of their social structure but every product 
of their creative activity. 

This wonderful simplicity of the Chinese and their determination to hold 
it always before the nation as the happiest goal is again brought out in the 
illustrations for the ‘Odes of Pin.’’? Pin was approximately the modern San- 
shui district of Shensi. There the forefathers of the emperors of the Chou 
dynasty first established their small colony, and founded society upon an agri- 
cultural basis. When the young Emperor Ch’éng-wang (1115-1079 B.c. ) first 
succeeded to the throne, he failed to realize the arduous efforts that were 
needed to gain a livelihood from the soil, and squandered the fruits of the 
people’s labor without the least knowledge of how dearly those fruits had 


"Category II, No. 9. * Ibid., No. 42. 


Bice a 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


been bought. Thereupon his uncle, the premier Chou-kung, who acted as his 
guardian during his minority, composed the famous ‘Odes of Pin,’’ describ- 
ing the life of an agricultural community, in order to remind the young em- 
peror how his forefathers had worked and struggled to feed and clothe their 
people and make the Chou dynasty what it then was. Nothing could be home- 
lier than these songs which the premier ordered sung to the young emperor 
day and night by blind musicians, and nothing gives more beautifully the 
earthy tang of Chinese classical culture. 

Li Lung-mien also painted the familiar story of the scholar Yiian An’ of 
the first century a.p., who would not leave his cottage during a heavy snow- 
fall to search for food lest he might be depriving others in a time of such gen- 
eral need. Of even more value in defining the distinctive characteristics of 
Confucianism is the description of how the virtues of Ch’iieh of Chi were dis- 
covered and enrolled in the services of his country.’ In this portrait, which 
like most of Li’s so-called portraits serves to embody a moral idea, he praises 
what is ever one of the sublimest virtues to the Chinese, a quality that lies at 
the very root of their thought and life, the cultivation and the continual ob- 
servation of the forms of ceremonious courtesy that one human being owes 
to another. ‘‘Once upon a time,” the story begins—only what follows is not 
a fairy-tale, but a no less beautiful historical fact—‘an officer of the Chin 
Dukedom [678-376 B.c._] was sent on a foreign mission. When he was trav- 
elling through the district of Chi, he saw Ch’iieh of the house of Hsi hoeing 
in the field, while his wife was coming toward him with his meal. But the 
circumstance that struck the officer most strongly was that the husband and 
wife received each other with the utmost respect; each treated the other like 
a guest of honor. The officer persuaded Ch’iieh to go back with him to the 


*Category II, No. 72. * Ibid., No. 3. 


Bena 


Chinese Painting 


court and said to the duke: ‘Respect is a repository of all virtues. A man 
who knows how to respect others, proves beyond question that he is a man 
of virtue; and as it is by virtue that the people are to be governed I recom- 
mend that Your Highness give him a position in the service of the dukedom.’ 
The duke made Ch’iieh an officer of the lower division of the army and later 
created him the lord of his native district Chi; he was then known as Chi 
Ch’iieh.”” Ceremony being the foundation of good government, a man such 
as this one who felt deeply the rules of human intercourse would necessarily 
become an invaluable force in the conduct of affairs of state. 

As is natural in any promulgation of Confucian ideals, the emperors are 
much extolled, not, however, as ponderous examples of perfection but as 
human beings who, though they rose at times to heights of courage and wis- 
dom, were not without their lighter moods, their humor, and their frailties. 
Though there are allusions to many, Li Lung-mien’s favorites seem to be 
T’ai-tsung (A.D. 627-650 ), the first great T’ang emperor and son of the 
founder of the dynasty, one of the sanest, wisest, most beneficent rulers of any 
age or country, and Ming-huang ( A.p. 712-756), who was as gracious and 
as irresponsible as his predecessor was forceful and controlled. Quite char- 
acteristically T’ai-tsung appears in two paintings’ in the role of conqueror; 
the first picture sets forth the surrender of his rival Li Mi, Lord of Wei, 
one of the powerful rulers of the day; the other, a typically Chinese subject, 
describes the ‘Covenant at the Pien-ch’iao Bridge,’ which marked T’ai- 
tsung’s diplomatic victory over the Av oncKie: or Turks, when in a.p. 626 
they were making under their leaders, Hsieh-li and Tuli, a successful inva- 
sion of the newly formed T’ang Empire. The goal of the Turkish leaders was 
Ch’ang-an, the western capital of the T’ang dominion, and with this in view 


“Category II, Nos. 26, 41. 


[ 62 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


they led their forces to the north of the Pien-ch’iao bridge which spanned 
the river Wei. T’ai-tsung, who had just ascended the throne, rode out to meet 
the enemy with six of his officers, unaccompanied_by any troops. He stopped 
on the south bank of the river and accosted Hsieh-li, upbraiding him for his 
violation of their agreement of the year 624. While this parley was going on 
the Chinese troops were gathering on the plains, and Hsieh-li, greatly fright- 
ened by their appearance, immediately asked for an amicable settlement. 
Admiration such as this for the man who could achieve a bloodless victory 
by superior intelligence is always a favorite theme in Chinese literature and 
art, and many examples of it are found in their earliest history. Neither fear 
nor distaste for fighting had a part in the psychology of this trait, for no race 
has fought more bravely or more frequently than they. But always there 
seems to have breathed from them this deep respect for the mind that can 
conquer brute force. The explanation of this love of intelligence is obviously 
implied in their early awareness of the unmodifiable elements in their natural 
environment. The Chinese race was not dropped from heaven fully armed 
with this wisdom, but could only have achieved it through the usual human 
method of trial and error, through a long-drawn-out contest between man 
and the natural forces by which he found himself surrounded. When they 
finally acquired the knowledge that the height of human intelligence consists 
in adaptation to the dictated aspects of life, they developed as a by-product 
a keen perception of what is not inevitable and the profoundest admiration 
for the man who could, through his intelligence, conquer the forces of a 
lower order without descending to their level of behavior. To such a civili- 
zation, War was necessarily a return to the brutal or instinctive conduct of 
life, and though their undeveloped neighbors and their own imperfect con- 


ditions often forced them to resort to arms, they were never afraid, as we 


[ 63 ] 


Chinese Painting 


are, to honor the man who could avoid such measures. A recourse to primi- 


tive methods was and is to them an admission of mental limitations; and since 


Lung-mien had shown that T’ai-tsung knew how to fight, it was desirable 


to indicate that he also knew how to avoid it. 

Precisely the same theme is celebrated in the picture of “Kuo Tzi-yi, 
riding out by himself, to make the Foreign Invaders of Lu surrender.’’* This 
was the great general who put the T’ang emperor back upon his throne 
after the two capitals and the entire court had been captured a.p. 755 by the 
Khitan Tartar, An Lu-shan. Revolts kept breaking out year after year, and 
finally, in 765, Kuo Tzut-yi found himself confronted by an army of several 
hundred thousand Uigurs, T’ufans, and other tribes, a force so powerful that 
he could not possibly meet it with the ten thousand men then under his com- 
mand. The Uigur commander had formerly been one of his lieutenants, and 
through diplomatic reminders of their former relationship, Kuo Tzt-yi suc- 
ceeded in shaking the Uigur’s allegiance to his new allies. The Uigur de- 
manded an interview with the Chinese general, and Kuo Tzi-yi, in the face 
of all warnings from his son and his officers, unarmed and followed by a few 
men, rode out to meet the Uigur forces. He was immediately recognized and 
allowed to approach; and in the ensuing conference he managed to turn the 
Uigur army against the T’ufans, who, taken unawares, were completely de- 
feated. Thus did Kuo Tzi-yi, single-handed, to the good fortune and the eter- 
nal delight of his countrymen, ward off the attack of a foreign force that was 
thirty or forty times larger than the army China could then muster. 

The Emperor T’ai-tsung is seen not only in the role of general and dip- 
lomat, but also as a scholar,’ this side of his nature having been of equal im- 
portance, if not of even greater moment for the development of his dynasty 


‘Category IV, No. 6. * Category II, No. 51. 


[ 64 ] 


4 
. 
| 
; 
. 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


and the empire. It is due to his love of learning and beauty that the Academy, 
which played soimportant a part in the history of Chinese culture, was founded 
in A.D. 621 by the eighteen most representative scholars of the country, whom 
‘T’ai-tsung had gathered about him as advisers. Day and night it was their 
duty to hold themselves in readiness for any conference he might desire, an 
excellent and long-lived example of that intimacy of contact between the 
executive and intellectual forces of the country which Confucianism loved to 
create. 

The lighter phase of life, when it is intelligent and graceful, as in the Em- 
peror Ming-huang, patron of all that is beautiful, of the arts, of horses, of 
architecture, and of gardening, receives no less consideration from Lung-mien 
than does the sterner character of the admirable T’ai-tsung. It is quite to be 
expected that we should have a scene of Ming-huang listening to music,’ for 
he was the greatest of royal musical amateurs and founded the first school 
for the study of music and acting. He selected for this purpose several hundred 
men and girls from the members of his court and organized them into a troupe 
that was under his personal direction. They were taught in his pear-garden, 
and to this day the theatrical world of China calls itself “The Pupils of the 
[ Emperor’s |] Pear-Garden.’’ Another painting’ shows the difficulties that the 
emperor sometimes encountered in managing the women of the palace. He 
was notoriously infatuated with the Kuei-fei, Yang, but to punish her disobe- 
dience of his wishes it suited his imperial dignity on one occasion to expel the 
lady from his presence. Though she was banished by his order, he could not 
resist the temptation to soften the punishment by sending her dishes from the 
imperial table; this kindness somoved Yang Kuei-fei that she was impelled 
to break the Confucian law against mutilation of the body, and sent her im- 


* Category II, No. 35. ? Ibid., No. 8, Sec. 8. 


fone 


Chinese Painting 


perial lover a lock of her beautiful hair. Ming-huang, at this sacrifice, was 
overcome with emotion and the story ends with the reinstatement of Yang 
Kuei-fei as court favorite. That humor was not wanting either in Ming-huang 
or in Li Lung-mien is illustrated by a third subject’ in this same series, of the 
emperor looking at himself in a mirror, while surrounded by his attendants. 
As his gayety was at this period much subdued by the severe and dictatory 
character of his efficient premier Han Hsiu, his courtiers advised him to send 
away the troublesome officer, whereupon the dejected Ming-huang, gazing 
at himself in the mirror, replies: “Though I have become thin, the empire is 
getting fat.” 

The other illustrations in this group of “‘ Historical Facts concerning the 
Relations between Emperors and their Subjects” are essentially Confucian 
in that they emphasize the duties of the ruler more than those of the ruled, 
and praise the fearless independence as well as the loyalty of the officials. 
The first section tells of the rebuke by an aged toll-gate keeper to the Duke 
of P’ei, the first Han emperor, because the young duke did not rise when 
his venerable subject entered the room. “If you desire to bring to an end the 
unprincipled Ch’in dynasty, you should not receive an elderly gentleman sit- 
ting,” the indignant toll-gate keeper tells his future emperor. The chronicle 
concludes: “‘ Up rose the Duke of P’ei and offered his apologies.” In the sec- 
ond story, the Emperor Wén-ti (179-157 B.c.) is told by one of his officers 
that he must have himself buried without desire-creating riches, if he would 
protect his coffin against violation; and the third narrative describes the oft- 
repeated heroism of Féng, a woman-officer of low rank, who saved the life of 
the Emperor Yuan-ti by placing herself in the path of a bear that threatened 
his royal person. The fifth illustration, which is devoted to that highest of Con- 


* Category II, No. 8, Sec. 4. 


[ 66 | 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


fucian ideals, loyalty, pictures Ho Kuang who, as premier to the Emperor 
Chao-ti ( 87—74.B.c. ),attempted to usurp the power of the throne. In a moment 
of confusion he tried to intimidate the Keeper of the Royal Seal to surren- 
der to him this emblem of power; but the Keeper, sword in hand, protested, 
saying, ‘‘ My head you may take, but not the seal.”’ Instead of murdering the 
man who stood in his way, the premier was lost in admiration of the officer’s 
devotion and courage, and the following day, at his instigation, an imperial 
edict was issued that the Keeper of the Royal Seal should be promoted to a 
rank two grades higher, “an act for which the people gave Ho Kuang much 
credit.”” Another quite characteristic narrative is that of Wang Méng of the 
Chin period, a scholar and student of war, who continued unconcernedly to 
scratch himself while interviewing the Field-Marshal Huan Wen. This un- 
conventional behavior so impressed the officer with Wang’s independence 
that he asked him to accept an appointment of high rank. “‘ Wang Méng, how- 
ever, went back to his hills.” 

The pictures which Lung-mien painted for the instruction of women’ are 
interestingly numerous and very lofty in tone, indicating that he had toward 
women the usual Confucian attitude, one of the finest that any culture has 
achieved. At all periods in China, women were free to develop themselves to 
the extent of their abilities; their power in the community was recognized, and 
any duty, even that of ruling the empire, might fall to their lot. An exalted 
behavior was expected of them, which was in turn rewarded by the most pro- 
found respect. Many are the stories of feminine loyalty which Li commends, 
as are also the examples of female vanity and wickedness which he helps to 
condemn. He illustrated the “‘ Book of Filial Piety for Girls,’’* which had been 
written by a woman during the T’ang period in the style of Confucius’ * Book 
"Category II, Nos. 1, 5, 30, 31, 37, 38, 39. * Ibid., No. 39. 


[eGr7, 74] 


Chinese Painting 
of Filial Piety,” and after his paintings he calligraphed those parts of the 


text which he had used as his subjects. He also copied Yen Li-pén’s “‘ Portraits 
of Eminent Women,”* which was based upon the ‘Biographies of Eminent 
Niitanan” written by the historian Liu Hsiang (77 B.c.). This is a compila- 
tion of the lives of prominent women, both good and evil, made as a warn- 
ing to the Emperor Ch’éng-ti, whose favorites came mostly from the lower 
classes, that women have a great influence upon the culture of the nation as 
a whole. The portraits that have been preserved are those of Téng Wan, 
Queen-consort of King Wu (740-690 B.c.) of Ch’u; Baroness Mu of Hsii 
(c. 660 B.c.); and that of the mother of Chao K’uo, general to King Hsiao- 
ch’éng (265-245 B.c.) of Chao. 

The reasons why these women were celebrated give an admirable insight 
into Confucian character. Téng Wan, Queen of Ch’u, is famous for a reply that 
she made to King Wu before he set out upon his last campaign. In the spring 
of 690 B.c., the king, who was about to attack once more the small state of Sui, 
went to his ancestral temple, according to custom, for a period of fasting and 
meditation ; but before performing this ceremony he went to see his Queen- 
consort and confessed to her that he found it beyond his power to collect his 
scattered and chaotic thoughts. Téng Wan sighed and said: “Your enjoyment 
of life and honor is coming to an end. It is a law of nature that an over- 
flowing self-conceit always makes one’s mind uncontrollable. Our ancestors 
must know of your vanity; therefore, on the eve of your departure, when im- 
portant commands must be issued, they [as a warning ] have caused your 
mind to be incapable of concentration. Our state will be fortunate if only this 
expedition proves no great loss to our army and you yourself should die 
during the journey, [thus avoiding the disgrace of being killed in the field 


‘Category II, No. 38. 


[ 68 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


by the enemy ].”” The king left and died in his camp at the Lang-mu Hill in 
Hupeh. 

Baroness Mu of Hsii was a daughter of Duke Yi (668-661 B.c.) of the 
Wei state. It happened that when the Baron of Hsii first asked her in mar- 
riage, the Duke of Ch’i was also a suitor for her hand. Hearing of this, she 
expressed the following opinions to her governess in order that the latter 
might transmit them to her father : “ Hsii is a small state and far away from 
our country, while Ch’i is big and lies much closer to us. As our country has 
been harassed by troubles from every side, would it not be far better for my 
father to give my hand to Ch’i so that my presence in that state may exert 
some influence in the interest of Wei?’ Her father refused to listen to her 
suggestion and gave her in marriage to Hsu. Later (in the year 660 B.c.), 
the Tis, a northern Tartar tribe, attacked Wei and, as it turned out, Hsii could 
render no help. The new king (elder brother of the Baroness ) and his people 
all fled to a city on the eastern frontier of Wei. This gave rise to the baroness’ 
pathetic ode, “I would have galloped my horses.”’’ 

The third picture was that of the wife of the veteran General Chao Sha, 
and the mother of Sha’s son, K’uo. King Hsiao-ch’éng of the Chao state, 
having dismissed his famous general, Lien P’o, replaced him with Chao K’uo 
to conduct the defence against the powerful state of Ch’in. K’uo’s mother 
petitioned the king, pointing out that her son was not qualified for the impor- 
tant position of a commanding general. The king questioned her as to the 
ground for her protest, and she replied: ‘“‘ When my husband was alive, I used 
to see how polite, friendly, sympathetic, and kind he was to all people, from 
those that were considered superior to him in virtue and learning down to the 
officers and men under his command; on the day that he received the king’s 


"See Legge, Shé King, Pt. I, Bk. IV, Ode 10. 


[ 69 J 


Chinese Painting 


order to conduct a campaign, he would immediately withdraw all his atten- 
tion from his family affairs. On the day that K’uo was appointed a command- 
ing general, he sat himself upon a high seat to receive his officers and men, 
so that they have regarded him since with awe and fear. He hoards up all 
the gold and silks the king has bestowed upon him. He gives his attention 
more to his personal wealth than to the army he is commanding. What does 
Your Highness think of such a man as compared with his father?’’ The king 
chose to ignore her protest. About forty or fifty days later the Ch’ins launched 
a violent attack upon that part of the Chao territory which K’uo had been 
defending, with the result that K’uo himself was killed in battle and some four 
or five hundred thousand troops surrendered themselves to Ch’in. The mother 
was ever praised by the world for her wisdom. 

Again we find Li copying Ku K’ai-chih’s scenes from the ‘‘ Counsels of the 
Woman-secretary,* which had been written in the third century a.p. by the 
scholar Chang Hua for the Empress Chia, in order to teach her that arro- 
gant behavior was inconsistent with womanly virtue. He enumerates the ideal 
qualities of woman which the empress should emulate and, for the sake of pro- 
priety, makes his essay read as if it had been presented by the woman-officer 
( Nii-shih) of the palace. His examples are all taken from history and give 
a beautiful picture of the Confucian woman as well as of her position and 
opportunities of influence in the life of the community. 

Repeatedly do we find Lung-mien extolling the faithful nature of woman, 
whether of a personal or of a patriotic character. He, like many another Chi- 
nese artist, delights in the adventures of Wén-chi,’ who was captured by 
Tartar cavalrymen during the chaos of the year a.p. 195 and taken into the 
household of Tso-hsien, prince of the southern Hsiing-nu Kingdom. During 


“Category II, No. 31. * Ibid., No. 61. 


Lom 


‘The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


the twelve years that she spent in Tartar captivity, she never ceased mourn- 
ing for her native land, and she is usually depicted returning to the Han King- 
dom in her dreams. The equally firm devotion of a wife to her husband is 
described in the picture entitled “‘ Weaving into Brocade a Poem of Rever- 
sible Text,’’! that illustrates the story of Su, wife of Tou T’ao, who, though 
her husband took another wife during his period of banishment to the “ flowing 
sands,’ waited patiently for his return and reminded him of his duties in this 
reversible poem of eight hundred and forty characters. Of paintings that cele- 
brate female beauty* there are also several, for womanly charms have ever 
been a power in China and have often played a momentous role in her history. 

Another set of Confucian paintings that seems to have ranked as one of 
the finest of Li’s efforts is the group of eight illustrations which he made of 
“Parental Love and Filial Piety.”* The first painting shows Confucius ad- 
monishing his son that without the study of the Odes he could not speak well 
and without a knowledge of Ceremonial he could not have good manners. 
The familiar story of the honest and self-sacrificing way in which the mother 
of Mencius brought up her son is the subject for the next illustration; and the 
third sounds a warning against laziness. The Viscount of Wen is reproved 
by his mother because he does not wish her to work. “In order not to fail 
your forefathers,” she tells him, ‘‘ you must give yourself day and night to 
application and cultivation.”’ Another warning which Lung-mien embodies in 
the fourth picture is against the dangers of leaving great wealth to one’s chil- 
dren. He quotes Su Kuang in the Han Shu to the following effect: “If I leave 
my sons and grandsons to toil in order that they may have enough clothing 
and food, they will be the equals of the people all around; but if I seek to in- 
crease our wealth, making it more than they actually need, I shall only teach 


"Category II, No. 5. * Ibid., Nos. 1, 2, 30. * Ibid., No. 62. 


erie 


Chinese Paintin 1g 


them to become slothful. If they are wise and I leave them much wealth, I 
shall rob them of their energy and determination, while if they are fools, much 
wealth will add to them nothing but misdeeds.’ The remaining pictures give 
various famous instancesof the devotion of children to their parents and grand- 
parents, showing that in caring for one’s elders, not only the mouth and body, 
but the heart as well, must be nourished. 

Another picture of importance, because it illustrates the attitude of toler- 
ance which Confucianism entertained toward Buddhism, is the painting of 
“’T’ui-chih’s Interview with Ta-tien.’’* T’ui-chih, or Han Yiu, as he is better 
known to history, was a greatly renowned essayist, poet, statesman, and phi- 
losopher of the T’ang dynasty and one of the noblest individuals which that. 
period produced. During his lifetime (a.p. 768-824.) Buddhism was at the 
height of its development, and Han Yiu, as a staunch Confucian, was bitterly 
opposed to the superstitious excesses which the Emperor Hsien-tsung per- 
mitted himself and encouraged in others. In his old age he was banished to 
the Governorship of Ch’ao-chou as punishment for a strongly worded admo- 
nition to the emperor against the worship of some pieces of Buddha’s bones 
that had just been imported from the west. While he was living in this remote 
province, the rumor began to spread at home that he had been converted to 
the Buddhist faith. One of his friends must have written him concerning this 
astonishing report, for in his complete works is a letter which is worth repeat- 
ing here for the same reason, no doubt, that Lung-mien was impelled to illus- 
trate it, because it shows the good feeling that existed between the leaders of 
each faith at the moment when they were supposed to have been most hos- 
tile. Just as Han Yii was the leader of Confucian thought, so Ta-tien, the priest 
who is mentioned in the letter, was at this period the most prominent upholder 


‘Category III, No. 65. 


Bigca 


a The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 

an of Buddhism . You said in your letter that from a report, I, Yii, have been | 

gonverted to the Buddhist faith. No, the rumor is utterly unfounded. However, 
J s one thing, I pam; in dead recent life that may have given rise to her 


people whom I found it worth while talking to, I sent for the old 
mm the hills to come to niy gfficial residence in the Chou city; and I 
ad mes for ep — ve ge when I went to the sea—coast 


’ ie + denemeticie of siiiesinasiant' Sees lings took wee 
tes od by my belief in his creed or by any dewre on my part to secure 
ure happiness or benefit for myself.” 

Y additional directions of the €auOsieuodd vax’Be found in the cat- 


‘a 


> 


THE Lotus CLusB 


(PLATE VII) 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


of Buddhism. ‘‘ You said in your letter that from a report, I, Yui, have been 
converted to the Buddhist faith. No, the rumor is utterly unfounded. However, 
there is one thing, I think, in my recent life that may have given rise to this 
report. It was when I was in my Ch’ao-chou post that I found an old priest, 
named Ta-tien, who was very intelligent and had a catholic understanding 
of all doctrines. And because in that distant part of the empire there was a 
dearth of people whom I found it worth while talking to, I sent for the old 
priest from the hills to come to my official residence in the Chou city; and I 
had him stay with me for about twelve days. Later when I went to the sea—coast 
to offer sacrifices to the spirits, I paid a visit to the old priest in his quarters; 
and when I left for Yiian-chou I gave him some clothing as a parting gift. 
All this was simply a demonstration of commonplace human feeling and was 
not actuated by my belief in his creed or by any desire on my part to secure 
any future happiness or benefit for myself.” 

Many additional directions of the Confucian aims may be found in the cat- 
alogue of Li Lung-mien’s work; but since we shall later examine the indi- 
vidual Confucian character as exemplified by Li Lung-mien’s friends, these 
excerpts will here suffice to show how distinguished were the innumerable 
traditions that Confucianism tried to uphold and how simple and broad-minded 


were its doctrines in the days of its finest development. 


f VI 
lr we now turn to a consideration of the Taoist pictures, what do we find? 
Gone is the background of ceremonious courts, the pomp of emperors, the 


influence of restraint and tolerance; gone also is the feeling for the elegan- 


cies of life, the benign atmosphere of womanly wisdom and womanly graces. 


Taal 


Chinese Painting 


In their stead we have a rudely masculine world that prefers for its abode 
the remotest fastnesses of nature, where ceremony yields to utter freedom. 
The emperor is no longer the centre of this universe; and if he appears at 
all, it is not as the revered Son of Heaven but as the representative of all the 
world’s imperfections. The court is distant and abjured; and man’s relation- 
ship to man is not the noblest aim of life, but a burden from which only the 
unfailing and unchanging forest solitude is a refuge and a release. 

The most noteworthy group of Taoists, not only because they developed 
an extreme and eccentric form of this philosophy but because they ever 
remained enshrined in the hearts of the Chinese scholars, is unquestionably 
that of ‘“The Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove,”* consisting of Hsi 
K’ang, Yiian Chi, Shan T’ao, Hsiang Hsiu, Liu Ling, Yiian Hsien, and Wang 
Yung. These worthies lived in the third century a.p.; all were scions of aris- 
tocratic families and some were officers of high rank, but they were united by 
their detestation of conventions and their contempt for the confused political 
conditions of the day. As they all hada profound love of nature, they retired 
to the freedom of an unconstrained existence in a remote part of modern 
Yiian-wu, Honan, where their mode of life was not only free but often de- 
cidedly jovial and even riotous in character. Of the many groups of scholar- 
recluses that Chinese history tells about, these men are the most important, 
because their philosophic conceptions, which they not only wrote but actually 
lived, have influenced the morals and manners of China even down to the 
present day. They have embodied for the scholar world the very spirit of in- 
dependence, and their literary productions have been cherished and imitated 
by untold generations of thoughtful students. There is no better way of acquir- 
ing an insight into their mentality than by reading a letter of protest written 


Category II, No. 4. 


a eel 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


by one of them, Hsi K’ang, to his fellow-member, Shan T’ao, because Shan 
T’ao had recommended his friend, the writer, as his successor in the position 
of secretary to the Civil Service Board. This letter has ever been beloved in 
China because, though highly personal, it expresses the scholar’s impatience 
with routine living and the attitude toward the world at large of the recluse 


a? 


temperament, “the man high above the mundane”’; but Hsi K’ang is not typi- 
cal when he expresses, as he does here, a contempt for the sage-kingss and for 
Confucius, an attitude of treason and profanation which in a.p. 262 cost him 
his life. Just before he was executed, he asked for his beloved harp, and sang 
an ancient song known only to him, so that, as he put it, the song and he 


might die together. 


A Letter from Hsi Kang to Shan Tao Severing their Friendship. 
Dear Frienp: Long, long ago you praised me before your uncle for my reluctance 
to enter public service, which made me think that you understood me. Yet, ever since, I 
have often wondered how you could know my mind, as I never confided my thoughts 
to you. Then, last year, on my return from a trip to the east, the report reached me that 
you had tried to recommend me to the government to take your place [as a secretary 
of the Civil Service Board]. The attempt was fruitless, but it has convinced me of one 
thing, that you really know nothing about me. This, however, is not to be wondered 
at; for, while you are a man of catholic tastes, ready with good-natured approval of any 
merit in others, I am by nature straightforward and intolerant, and much in the world 
is repulsive to me;. thus our friendship is merely a matter of chance. A short while ago, 
hearing that you had been promoted one grade higher, I felt, and still feel, somewhat 
worried, my fear being that you might behave like a certain important cook, who, a bit 
shy of the great responsibility of his position, insisted on dragging in some one to help 
him, and, meat-knife in hand, infected that some one with all sorts of unpleasant smells. 


Let me, therefore, give you a full account of my personal likes and dislikes. 


[az el 


Chinese Painting 


I have occasionally read of men who could render valuable services to the world and 
at the same time preserve their own integrity. I used to think that such characters were 
non-existent; but now I begin to suspect that such people are not impossible; take, 
for instance, Laotzti and Chuang-chou | Chuangtzti |, whom I regard as masters, Liu- 
hsia Huei’ and Tung-fang So,” who were decidedly wise men, Chung-ni [ Confucius | 
and many others, all these contented themselves with minor positions in the public ser- 
vice. They did this because they hoped that they might have opportunities of doing the 
people some good. For them, I confess, this was perfectly right and I have nothing to say 
against them; for, as superior men, were they not entitled to do whatever they thought 
best? But for precisely this reason I cannot force myself to take them as an example, 
inasmuch as my nature cannot stand what theirs could endure. 

I have often read the biographies of Shang Tzi-p’ing* and T’ai Hsiao-wei.* Ah! 
how each reading made me yearn toward them and admire them more and more! My 
father died when I was very young; and, as both my mother and brother treated me 
with much indulgence, I paid little attention to studying the Classics; moreover, I was 
by nature so careless and lazy that often for a whole month ora fortnight I would not 
wash my head and face, and unless the irritation proved almost unbearable, I could 
not persuade myself to take a bath. As I have now enjoyed this self-indulgence so long, 
my mind and feelings have become more and more indifferent and gone more and more 
astray until my abandonment, having made me violate all conventional politeness, has 
been brought to perfection by my lazy habits. However, my circle of friends has been 
magnanimous enough to overlook my lack of manners. Then I began the study of 
Laotzti and Chuangtzti and this has accentuated my abandonment, with the result 
that all my desire to progress in the world of glory has been on the wane day by day, 


while my zeal to live according to my own nature has become gradually intensified. 


*An officer of the state of Lu, shortly before the time of Confucius, who was distinguished for his upright 
character. 


*A gifted scholar and official under the Emperor Han Wu-ti, second century B.c. 


* Both well-known scholar-recluses during the second century a.p. 


E763) 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


My case may be likened to that of a bird or deer; if they are domesticated when 
young, they submit meekly to all sorts of chastisement and restraint; but when re- 
straint commences after they are grown up, they look about in frenzy, tug wildly at their 
fastenings, and rush unhesitatingly even into boiling water or flames to free themselves. 
Even though you should adorn them with ornaments of gold and feed them with the 
most tempting morsels of food, you would only succeed in quickening their thought of 
the deep woods and their desire for its rich grasses. 

Yiian Ssii-tsung’ never criticized other people’s faults. 1 used to take him as my ex- 
ample, but so far I have failed to equal it; he is a man of high filial piety who would 
not harm anybody or anything. His only fault lies in drinking to excess. Yet for this 
small failing he has been condemned by conventional people, and their enmity against 
him seems almost personal; but he is fortunate in having a defender and protector in 
the Commander-in-Chief.* Now I have not the attributes of Ssti-tsung, for I am guilty 
of the worst manners; then, again, I never understand human nature, and on the ques- 
tion of tact I have always been very dense. Alas! without the caution of Wan-shih,’ 
and with my love of frankness, is there in the long run any possibility that in my deal- 
ings with the world, during which I should see defects and faults cropping up all 
around day after day, I could avoid trouble, however ardently I might wish it? 

In human society there has always been a body of etiquette in force, just as at courtaset 
of definite rules has ever been observed. In relation to these things I have studied myself 
thoroughly and come to theconclusion that there are seven conditions that to me are utterly 
unbearable, and two others which make it highly inadvisable[for me to enter public life |. 

1. I love to lie in bed and get up very late; but [as a public officer] the official mes- 
sengers would keep on urging me to rise. 

11. [love to walk about with a scholar’s harp under my arm and hum some lines of 


poetry, or to shoot and fish in the grassy country; but [if I were in public service] I 


*Yiian Chi, a fellow-member of the group of ‘‘ Wise Men.”’ 
* The renowned General Ssii-ma Chao, father of the founder of the Chin dynasty. 


* A prominent official of the second century B.c., famed for his caution. 


Bae 


Chinese Painting 


should always have some runners or soldiers standing beside me in attendance, to pre- 
vent me from doing what I wish. 

ui. If I sit upright for an hour, a numb feeling comes over my whole body. Imagine 
then that I should have to wrap myself in official full dress and perform obeisances to 
my superiors! 

tv. I have always found difficulty in writing, and by nature I hate to write; but this 
world is full of business, which my littered desk readily proves. Now, if I ignore every- 
thing by not answering, I violate the conventions and hurt my friends’ feelings; on the 
other hand, if I force myself into doing the proper thing, Iam sure I could not keep it up. 

v. I dislike to call upon any family that has suffered a bereavement to offer my con- 
dolences; but society regards this etiquette as so important that my neglect of it has 
rarely been forgiven, and among those who resented my neglect the most were people 
who would not hesitate to do anything to injure me. I sometimes reproach myself for the 
things that I have done, but what can I do to rectify my nature? Willingly would I bow 
to the prevailing custom, but I should be concealing my real character; and after all such 
efforts I probably should not be able to escape uncriticized. 

vi. Vulgar people always disgust me, and in the service one cannot help mixing 
with them. Sometimes the rooms are so crowded with guests and friends that their 
shouts and voices are simply deafening. The disorder, the dust, and the odors! And the 
thousand pantomimic scenes and endless gesticulations presented to one’s eyes! 

vu. I cannot stand annoyance. But official business has ever been multitudinous: 
thus my mind would be entwined with all sorts of affairs incident to my duty, and my 
thoughts would be disturbed by the occurrences of the world. 

[ The two things which make it inadvisable for me to enter public life: | 

1. Quite often I deride T’ang* and Wu,” and hold Chou’ and K’ung* in contempt. 


*T’ane (1766-1754 B.c.) was the founder of the Shang dynasty. 
> Wu (1122-1116 B.c.) was the first emperor of the Chou dynasty. 
* Chou, known as Chou-kung, was the elder brother of Wu, first emperor of Chou. 


*K’ung, t.e., Confucius. 


eerss af 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


Such views, when one persists in them as I have done, will become known some time 
or other to the public, and then the moral mind of the entire world would certainly not 
look at me with toleration. 

u. My stern nature hates all improper conduct. Being careless, courageous, and out- 
spoken, my indignation breaks out whenever the occasion warrants. 

Now, with a nature as strict and intolerant as mine, and coupled with these nine 
weaknesses, I might, if such a thing is possible, escape outside attack, but I should 
certainly suffer internally. Is it then good for me to remain in this world of men? 

Furthermore, I have heard of a tradition of the Taoist priests that taking the “Chu- 
Huang-Ching”* makes one live long —a teaching in which I have a great deal of faith. 
Besides, I have enjoyed prodigiously my saunterings among the mountains and streams, 
and my contemplation of the fishes and the birds; but, as soon as I enter public service, 
I should have to forego all these pleasures. How can I leave what I have enjoyed to under- 
take what I have always disliked ? 

The value of friendship between two men lies in the understanding that each has 
of the other, and in the help that each gives to the development of the other. The an- 
cient sages and the modern wise men have all done this for their friends; and we may 
consider this kind of friendship as a “beginning-to-end” friendship and one in which 
there is true mutual understanding. A piece of straight wood is never used to make a 
wheel, nor a crooked piece to make a lath; for people, far from wishing to do injustice 
to the natural qualities of wood, want to make a proper use of it. In like manner, the 
four classes’ of people have each their own suitable vocation, and each feels happy only 
when it can attain its own ambition. Barring the superior wise men, none can adapt him- 
self to a life entirely against his nature. You must not, just because you like the cere- 
monial hat of the Shang period, force upon the natives of Yiieh [ Chékiang, Fukien, 
etc. | the ceremonial hats of Chou [since they cut off their hair, go about naked, and do 


not require hats], or, just because you relish putrid food, feed the phoenix on dead rats. 


* A medicinal plant, still used in China, supposed by the Taoists to make the body immortal. 


* The four classes were the scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. 


Paroue 


Chinese Painting 


Of late, I have taken up the study of hygienics. I have been trying to keep at a 
distance all things relating to glory, to give up all food that is delicious and rich, to 
permit my mind to work only in absolute quietism, and to lay stress on non-exertion. I 
would not take any notice of your desires even though I were free from those nine weak- 
nesses; but since in addition I have suffered from a weakness of the heart which has 
lately become more and more serious, it is entirely out of the question for me to endure 
what I do not like. I have weighed this matter and I am perfectly sure of myself. If, 
through my own doing, I should come to my rope’s end, I would not complain; but 
surely you have no cause to wrong me by attempting to drag me down. 

I have just suffered two bereavements, the loss of my mother and my brother, and 
have thereby been subjected to great distress. My daughter is thirteen, and my son just 
eight; while they are both under age, I am far from being in good health. In consider- 
ing all these sorrows, how shall I express my feelings to you? My only desire at present 
is to live quietly in my dingy lane, bring up my children and grandchildren, have a chat 
once in a while with my relatives and old friends, or take a cup of wine that need not 
be of the best and play a tune on my harp; there all my ambitions and desires cease. 

Your pestering me, if you persist in it, is due probably to no other motive than that 
of securing for public service some one that might prove useful to the present govern- 
ment; but of all my unsystematic, peculiar, careless ways and my inexperience in official 
business there is nothing that is not already known to you; and in addition I see in my- 
self no qualities that can equal those of the wise and able men of to-day. If you consider 
it odd that, while all the vulgar people covet honor and glory, I alone am happy in keep- 
ing away from these —well, perhaps this is the view that comes nearest to my attitude 
of mind, and I may claim that much to my credit. But this attitude is admirable only 
in those that really have great genius and extensive knowledge, and yet refuse to seek 
honor and glory. In my case, I am merely trying, on account of my bad health, to stay 
away from active life so that I may safeguard myself and live out what years remain 
to me. Such being the case, it merely indicates that my nature is lacking in ambition. 


Is there any virtue in that to speak of? Should you insist on my entering public service, 


[ 80 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


you would, the very day that you brought force to bear upon me, drive me straightway 
out of my mind; I do not think that you would resort to this, unless you had a serious 
grudge against me. Once a country fellow, having enjoyed basking in the sun and 
having found the taste of watercress much to his liking, wanted to recommend his dis- 
coveries to the emperor. His intention was commendable, to be sure, but was it not a bit 
absurd? I hope you will not behave likewise. 

The foregoing is a representation of my views. Now that I have explained them 


fully to you, let me bid you good-bye! Hees 


To those who have realized the Confucian world of order, loyalty, and pas- 
sion for service, such an unrestrained and even treasonable letter seemsalmost 
incomprehensible, unless they are familiar with the historical events that pre- 
ceded it. Though Hsi K’ang has been selected as the most striking antithesis 
in temperament to his Confucian countrymen, his was by no means an isolated 
case, and he represents the violence of the spiritual rupture that occurred in 
China immediately after the downfall of the Han Empire. It is necessary to 
visualize this period of China’s cultural development in order to gain a full 
understanding of her later arts, especially that of painting, for it was then that 
most of the mental foundations were relaid which found expression in the 
literature, calligraphy, and pictorial art of the T’ang and Sung dynasties. 

Not that this change in the Chinese mentality had taken place suddenly. 
Though the tone of the Han dynasty was predominantly Confucian, Taoist 
speculations had already enlisted innumerable scholars,and when the restrain- 
ing force of Confucian discipline had crumbled, the Taoist yearnings which 
almost every Chinese mind has always contained, asserted themselves as 
never before. 

The necessity for such mental readjustment is implied with a simple ob- 


viousness in the political situation in which China, if one can call the collection 


[eB ie) 


Chinese Painting 


of petty kingdoms of the Six Dynasties by a single name, then found her- 
self. The Chin emperors did actually succeed for a century and a half, after 
much murder and warfare, in establishing a loosely united rule over the three 
states into which the Han Em pire had been divided; but throughout their reign 
only a minimum of security existed, for the central government was weak, 
and the five Tartar tribes were pounding ominously and continuously at the 
door. China was under a perpetual state of siege from without; and, even 
within his territories, the emperor dared but make suggestions to his subject 
provinces which were followed or not as the people chose. 

The power of Confucianism was naturally dimmed in a state that could 
not hold the respect of its citizens, and the country turned first to Taoism, 
and later to Buddhism, for refuge and solace. Unfortunately the mystic side 
of Taoism, which was later to become such a menace to this whole school of 
thought, found as many followers as the more constructive teachings which 
embodied the ancient Chinese love of freedom and of nature; but the latter, 
especially during the years of the Chin dynasty, became so deeply ingrained 
in the character of the scholar-world that the Chinese, even now, cannot be 
understood without a knowledge of the men and manners of this epoch. For 
the atmosphere of the times has survived to this very day, not only in the 
writings of ‘The Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove,” but even more 
worthily in the beautiful poems and essays of T’ao Yiian-ming, whom we 
shall later study with care, because he so perfectly typifies the contempt for 
official service, the exaggerated individualism, and also the unhappiness, the 
blow to pride which a Confucianism that would not entirely die out caused 
these men to feel at the supine aspect of their government and the disloyalty 
that reigned throughout the empire. 

Many of the officials who, unlike T’ao Yiian-ming and Hsi K’ang, left no 


[ 8 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


literary records of their thought, lived their lives so eccentrically and with 
such complete disregard of duty or personal ambition, that their names and 
deeds became a byword with later generations. Of these men, generals like 
Shan Chien and Wang Hsi-chih were typical. The former, as Lung-mien 
himself states,’ “passed his time in a leisurely and pleasant manner while the 
empire was rife with revolts and other disturbances. He did nothing but give 
himself up to the wine-cup. The most prominent native family, the Hsis, had 
many gardens with ponds. Whenever Shan Chien went out for recreation, he 
would go to one of these ponds and there he would call for wine and drink 
until he was half-intoxicated.’”” Wang Hsi-chih,’ who was a much more re- 
markable man, the greatest calligraphist of China and one of her leading ar- 
tistic iconoclasts, was not as hopelessly addicted to drink, but he, too, lost a 
battle and was retired because it did not suit his lawless disposition to spend 
time in the dull routine of drilling troops. 

Li Lung-mien’s catalogue not only gives us the feeling for the independent 
and lovable mentality of these Taoists, but it shows us that this mood existed 
in many an earlier stage, and was merely exaggerated in the men of Chin, 
that it continued, even when China was peacefully settled under the strong 
rule of the T’angs, and still smouldered amidst the official interests of the Sung 


dynasty in the heart of every poet and painter worthy of the name. 


VII 
Tuoues the maladjustment of the Chin scholars forced them into an extreme 
Taoism, that of other periods was ever tempered by Confucian loyalty to the 
state. For example, “The Four Hoary Men of the Shang Mountains’’* had 


* Category II, No. 8, Sec. 6. * Ibid., Nos. 15, 25. *Ibid., Nos. 49, 57. 


B55 


Chinese Painting 


already rendered long service to the Ch’in dynasty (221-207 B.c.) before 
they fled from the onslaughts of Han; and the fourth century scholars de- 
scribed in “A Scene at Shan Yin’’* were also “able and conscientious off- 
cers,”’ even though “‘they had such a passionate love of landscape that they 
were reluctant to remain long in public service.”” Again, in the ‘‘ Three Wise 
Men of Wu-Chung,’’* Lung-mien groups together scholars who lived at such 
widely divergent periods as the fifth and third centuries B.c. and the ninth 
century A.D. because they were all alike in their “‘contempt for worldly fame 
and their love of nature.”’ 

One might go on indefinitely enumerating examples of this sort, for Li 
never tires of depicting this mixture of Confucian and Taoist mentality, which, 
because of its constant recurrence in Chinese history, may really be called 
the typical Chinese character. Indeed, Li Lung-mien was so often drawn to 
the delineation of these hermit-scholars because he himself was one of them, 
and throughout the years of his official duties retained this ideal of utter free- 
dom as the final goal of life. 

A portrait such as that of T’ao Hung-ching,’ for example, shows how like- 
able, useful, and happy a personality, this mingling of the two schools of 
thought produced. This sixth century scholar wrote meritorious books both 
on Confucian and Taoist philosophy, and showed his Confucian respect for 
government by accepting a position as preceptor to the royal princes of 
Southern Chi and by his knowledge on all questions relating to court eti- 
quette and other old ceremonies. But “in the year 492 he resigned his official 
position and took up his abode in the Kou-ch’ti Hills, through which he made 
extensive trips, hunting for the Elixir Vitae, and whenever he came across 
beautiful natural scenery, he would sit or lie down, singing or composing 


* Category II, No. 50. * Ibid., No. 68. *Ibid., No. 59. 


[ 84 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


verses and lingering long in absorbed contemplation.’ The first part of his 
life is spent in faithful service to the state and the study of government, but 
his duty done, he departs in quest of the Elixir Vitae! The joy of this con- 
trast! The most systematic conduct of life and office leads not to a dry old 
age but to a search for Never, Never, Never land. The rest of T’ao Hung- 
ching’s biography sounds as if it might just as well have been written of Lung- 
mien himself, and not only of him, but of generation upon generation of similar 
wise and happy natures who neither shirked the responsibilities of life nor lost 
its joy by accepting its conventions too slavishly. ‘‘In about 499, he rebuilt 
and enlarged his studio [in the Kou-ch’ii Hills] into a three-storied house, 
the upper floor of which was used as his own abode, the second floor as the 
lodging of his disciples, while all visitors were admitted only to the lower 
floor; thus he cut himself off completely from any communication with the 
world. Only a servant-boy was allowed to remain near him in attendance. 
He was seven feet, four inches in height, bright in expression, slender in 
stature, ears quite long. He read more than ten thousand volumes, was very 
skilful in playing the scholar’s harp and at chess, and also at calligraphy of 
the ‘running-hand’ and ‘seal’ characters. He loved especially the breezes that 
blew among the pine branches, and was transported into a state of ecstasy 
whenever he heard these waves of sound. Once in a while he sallied forth 
for a saunter among the rocks and streams all by himself, and was thought 
by those who saw him to be an immortal being. He liked writing, had a taste 
for the unique, set the highest value on time, and worked the harder as he ad- 
vanced in years. He looked a man of thirty when he was more than eighty.” 

It is this same love of nature that consoled Ch’én Chung-chii,’ a contem- 
porary of Li Lung-mien’s, when he was banished during Lung-mien’s own 


"Category I, No. 3. 


Ee 


Chinese Painting 


time to Nan-k’ang for protesting against the new financial policy of Wang 
An-shih. Nothing daunted by his official degradation, he reared two yellow 
calves, on which he and his friend, Liu Yung-chih, went roaming through the 
Lu Hills, a diversion which filled them with such delight that Ch’én wrote a 


beautiful poem to commemorate these excursions. 


“T ride on an ox. Do not laugh at me. In this world one must suit one’s own taste. 

“Reeds are used to make my whip, grasses for my saddle. Before precipices, hung 
with waterfalls, or on paths, shaded by pine-trees, whenever I wish to contemplate the 
scenery or listen to the sound of the waters, I ride slowly, using my whip lightly, and 
urging my ox gently on, in order that we may not raise so much as a particle of dust. 

“T am clad in a cloth gown, girdled with a strand of grass; on my head is a black cap, 
a mode of dressing that is far from fashionable, but perfectly suited to a mountaineer. 

“On my back is a gourd containing wine, from which I take a draught every now 
and then. From the horn of my ox hangs down a black bag containing books. Often I 
sing out poems at the top of my voice, often I become so intoxicated that I almost slip 
from the back of my ox. | 

“ And what a great man my aged friend [ Liu | is! For thirty springs he has lived 
in the Lu Mountains. His voice sounds like a big bell, his eyes flash like lightning. 
Even at the age of seventy the brilliancy of his expression dazzles all who look at him. He 
never needs help in mounting or descending from his ox. Surely such a figure in this 


landscape makes a wonderful picture.” 


Such were some of the varieties of Taoist character that Li Lung-mien loved 
endlessly to illustrate. In contrast to these philosophical and literary Taoist- 
Confucian borderline types, which were at all periods the most numerous and 
the most representative of China’s large scholar population, we find another 
more mystical kind of Taoist that was not uncommon throughout the Han- 


dynasty, then became very numerous in the third and fourth centuries, and 


[ 86 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


later, unfortunately, was more influential with the uneducated masses than 
the better balanced, more productive mentalities which we have just de- 
scribed. This mystic Taoism originated in what for the Chinese temperament 
was a natural desire to make a practical use of the knowledge which so inti- 
mate a contact with nature was bound to produce. Since spirit and matter were 
one, these early semi-scientists were tempted to seek tirelessly the elixir 
which would preserve the human body forever, and win for them the only 
immortality of which they could conceive. This long succession of alchemists 
may not, however, be entirely contemned, since many of their discoveries 
were real additions to the chemical knowledge of the Orient. Moreover, we 
occidentals probably owe it to these dreamers that our own mediaeval schol- 
ars laid their fantastic basis for our later chemical sciences, if it is true, as 
many scholars claim, that the works of the Arabian, Avicenna, then of Al- 
bertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lulli, and many another early ex- 
perimentalist, show the direct influence of this phase of Taoism.’ 

Li Lung-mien was frankly interested in these hermit-alchemists and illus- 
trates the type for us in his portrait of “Old Man, Chang Kuo,’’” who lived in 
the eighth century, and who was so devoted to the“ investigation of the recipes 
and drugs of the immortals” that he refused to give up the search in ex- 
change for positions of honor at court. He avoided every sort of community 
responsibility and spent his life trying to win from nature the secret of immor- 
tality, not, to be sure, in another world, but in this world, that he, like his fel- 
low-Taoists, loved to the point of wishing never to relinquish it. “Chang Kuo 


came from no one knew where. He lived a secluded life in the Chung-t’iao 


* See ‘Alchemy in China,’’ in The Chinese, by W. A. P. Martin (Harper’s). Also L. Wieger, Histoire des 
Croyances réligieuses et des Opinions Philosophiques en Chine, p. 421. 


* Category III, No. 2. 


[ne aa 


Chinese Painting 


range [Shansi]. The men of the time reported that he possessed the secret 
art of prolonging life, and he himself asserted that he was several hundred 
years old.’’ Three times the court sent for him to appear, but on two occasions 
Chang Kuo, who was very skilful in regulating his breath, feigned death, and 
only at the third summons did he finally consent to come. ‘‘One of the prin- 
cesses, Yii-chén, who was devoted to Taoism, desired to descend to Chang 
as his wife. The emperor was in favor of the match, but Chang only roared 
with laughter and flatly refused to obey the imperial command. In 734 he 
succeeded in tearing himself from the court, went into the Héng Mountains, 
and since then no one has known his whereabouts.” 

Another form of Taoist mysticism, interesting because it takes us far back 
to the first glimmer of knowledge that we have about China, is found in the 
“Portrait of the Metamorphic Being Tai-yi.’’* An explanation has been given 
of the early worship of the North Star and how its fortunes waxed and waned 
with those of its earthly antitype, the emperor, though never quite eclipsed 
either by Confucian wisdom or Taoist lore. As late as the eighth century a.D., 
we find Ch’én Ts’ang-ch’i explaining in the Supplementary Notes of the 
T’ang Materia Medica what the connection is between the astronomical form 
of worship and the beliefs of the Taoists: ‘‘’T’ai-yiis the ancestor and source 
of the ‘Tao.’ T’ai means ‘Great’ and Yi, ‘Tao.’ The master of Tao is the 
King of Nature.” If it is not very clear in its thought or its philology, it shows 
how intimately the T’ang philosophers felt themselves linked to the primi- 
tive form of thought, and that they believed nature still meant to them what 
it had meant to their remotest forefathers. However, the idea of depicting 
T’ai-yi in human form,as Lung-mien does, lying on a gigantic lotus leaf, would 
have shocked those unanthropomorphic forefathers considerably, for such a 


"Category III, No. 55. 


r 88 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


rendering is obviously the influence of the many human representations of 
Taoist spirits and Buddhist deities with which this age was familiar. 

The delightful, imaginative, fairy-tale side of Taoism is illustrated in the 
“Immortal of Ku-yi”* and the ‘‘ Metamorphic Being on the Wind.’’? Both 
these supernatural beings are described by the philosopher Lieh-tzt, whose 
works bear the date of the fourth century B.c., but whom later criticism de- 
clares an invention of the Han scholars. In his second chapter he says that 
“The Lieh-ku-yi Hill is on an island in the sea. On this hill there is an im- 
mortal who lives by inhaling the wind and drinking the dew, without eating 
any cereals. Its mind is like a deep spring, its appearance that of a maiden.” 

With never-failing imagination Lieh-tzt: describes how he learned to ride 


on the wind: 


“After a period of nineteen years, Lieh-tzti absorbed all that his teacher Lao-shang- 
shih and his friend Po-kao-tztii knew about the Tao. He felt that the functions of his 
organs were utterly interchangeable, that his corporeal form had melted away, bones and 
flesh having disappeared altogether, and that he could be carried wherever the wind 
blew as if he were the leaf of a tree or a dry shell. Indeed, he was not sure whether it 


was the wind that rode on him or he that rode on the wind.” 


Tales such as these associated Taoism closely with the popular spirit wor- 
ship of Chinese life, which must also have interested Lung-mien; for what 
is reputed by Chinese criticism to be one of his best known and most beautiful 
creations, is a set of illustrations done for “The Songs of the Nine Spirits.’”® 
These “‘Songs’’ were composed in the fourth century by Ch’ti Yuan, a poet 
of the state of Chu, in an attempt to elevate and beautify the spiritistic rites 


that the uncultivated classes always persisted in celebrating. While offermg 


* Category II, No. 24. * Ibid., No. 72. * Category II, No. 7. 


[ 89 J] 


Chinese Painting 


sacrifices they would play music and dance to please the spirits; and as Ch’ii 
Yiian was shocked at the ludicrous wording of their songs, he took the ideas 
they expressed and put them into better form in order to lend some dignity 
to the ceremony. It is natural that philosophic beliefs of so intellectual a nature 
as those of China, whether Confucian or Taoist, were untenable by the masses, 
and as the inevitable expression of more popular conceptions, we find this 
strong undercurrent of superstition. It was ever of a local character and had a 
fluid quality, differing from place to place and from one generation to another. 
Both Confucianism and Taoism made concessions to it in their rituals; and 
Ch’iti Yuan’s kindly concern for the form of these popular beliefs, as well as 
Lung-mien’s pictorial representation, are quite characteristic of the tolerance 
and interest that the Chinese scholar felt concerning the needs of his less cul- 
tivated countrymen. For they had the insight to perceive that these simpler 
people were expressing in their language the same awe for the force of nature 
and its silent influence upon the fortunes of man that the scholars themselves 
were groping to enmesh in a philosophic network of language, in the subtle- 
ties of art, or in the forms of social and religious ceremonial. 

In the Sung dynasty the number of China’s inhabitants who were paying 
imperial taxes, according to the Great Dictionary, amounted on an average to 
some thirty millions,’ a population that could still be intellectually dominated 
by the large scholar-class; when the number of China’s illiterates increased, 
this superstitious side of Taoism gradually became more and more powerful 
until, with the vast uneducated population of later centuries, little else remained. 
But this later degeneration must not be allowed to influence our appreciation 
of the early Taoist contributions to the life and literature of the Chinese race. 

Nor must these crude beliefs be confused with those of the cultivated classes. 


“See also De Mailla, Histoire de la Chine, Vol. VII, p. 302. All figures on China’s population are unreliable. 


[ 90 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


This need of the mystic element in life was as absent from the sane mentality 
of the Sung scholar as it had ever been dominant in that of the masses. Even 
divination, which Confucius in his respect for antique culture had retained, 
was neglected by the Sung philosophers, and a purely historical, an intel- 
lectually appreciative attitude toward all religious practices and personages 
prevailed. This can be clearly seen in the scriptural Taoist paintings, in the 
illustrations for Taoist writings, or even in the portraits of Laotzt, the founder 
of Taoism, toward whom, if toward any one, a religious attitude might be ex- 
pected. But we find on the scrolls of ‘Laotzti Delivering his Tao Té Ching’”” 
only a short matter-of-fact account, quoted from the history of Ssu-ma Ch’ien, 
of Laotzii’s life and his final departure for the unknown when he saw that 
the royal house of Chou was doomed. It becomes quite evident from these 
paintings and from the Buddhist group which we still have to consider that 
the religious sense, as we understand it, was not a part of the mental equip- 
ment of the Sung scholar. The three so-called religions of China furnished 
him with matter for deep moral and philosophic speculation, but not with sit- 
uations in which the element of faith was brought into play. He had faith of 
a profound character, faith in the development that lies for man in his inter- 
actions with the environment, and reverence he had in abundance, only it was 
not saved for religious services, for creeds and dogmas. It was meted out 
from a full heart to every bud that opened in the springtime, to the beauty 
and sanctity of human relationships, and to the great men among those more 
remote generations that had labored for him as he now labored for genera- 
tions yet unborn. If the Tao manifested itself in all things, why seek it ex- 
clusively in temples or their ministrants? Since the Confucian forms of social 


intercourse and the Taoist interpretation of man’s environment made every 


"Category III, Nos. 20, 48. * Ibid, No. 53. 


Ocnere 


Chinese Painting 


phase of life a religious ceremony, living itself became the holiest of rituals; 
and the art that portrayed nature’s loveliness, or human virtues, or merely the 
grace of flying horsemen, was no less—nay—was more religious in charac- 
ter than that which occupied itself with consecrated sanctity and institutional 


forms of worship. 


VIII 

Waar room was left in the minds and hearts of a race so actively wor- 
shipful of life and earth for the teachings of the Buddhist faith? If we turn to 
the Buddhist paintings, what do we find? One sharp contrast strikes us im- 
mediately. Here are no lofty inscriptions, lovingly written in Li Lung-mien’s 
crystal-like calligraphy, no moral tales held up for all to read and profit by, 
no historical allusions to wrap them round in ancient and beloved lore; instead 
we have art comments, the enthusiastic eulogies of successive owners, that 
sound, after the warmth and idealism and earnest aspiration of the Confu- 
cian pictures, as thin as only art chatter can. The paintings themselves, as 
we know them, are just as beautiful as any of the others, but the very fact 
that Li left most of his Buddhist pictures to stand on their artistic merits 
indicates that they could not have been so near to his life and the lives of 
those for whom he painted, as were the richly suggestive depictions of Con- 
fucian characters and Taoist temperaments. 

This is borne out by the tenor of the collectors’ inscriptions that indicate in 
the observers the same purely artistic interest that Li himself seems to have 
had in his Buddhist paintings. Instead of pointing out their moral value or 
other textual content, as on the Confucian and Taoist subjects, we find Tung 
Ch’i-ch’ang writing ona scroll of the Sixteen Lohans:’ ‘This painting is very 


* Category III, No. 8. 


Bier 


A. 


¥, 


mn Sree 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 
antique and high in style, and in spirit very lively and realistic. This scroll 


: ws a 


Eee was transferred to me for a book of Sung and Yiian pictures.’”’ Not a word 


“J on its religious, ethical, or historical import. And Chang Ch’ou, the great 
seventeenth century critic, in speaking of “ The Assembly on the Sea,” gives 
the following description: “The ‘wndscape, trees, and rocks look unique and 
ae the figures are replete with life, and mingled with all these, the 
_ mists, clouds, dragons, water, pelaces, buildings,and all sorts of things are de- 
eS - picted with consummate skill amd care; ner is the style anything but antique 

a and graceful.” What joy it must have been to Lung-mien when under his 
_ brush this variety of ‘things sprang to life! In another Buddhist painting* we 
_ find him making an opportunity te exercise his skill on the depiction of “ birds, 
- ferocious animals, plants, and wees,one hundred and twenty-five in number.” 
We are delighted that he did them. and positively yearn for a sight of such 
an outburst of imaginative ingemetty ; but can this be called a religious influ- 
"ence? Buddhism with its encle»s gay qry! pT AA FOOn! opportunity for 
_ the artistic mind to soar; but so had (Fata) [wectioned before it, and 
‘ ev ry tributary state that the artists had heard of but never seen, and all the 
i eimnerable spirit-tales that in (hina are even older than any of these other 
_ vehicles of poetic and pictorial expression. . 

The only Buddhist painting that bbls aki ial 0 eclaiize er nets iat 
.. a ¥* igion and the life of the Chinese is the picture of “The White Lotus Club,” 
a -: 3 group of high-minded officiwis, priests, and literary men who in the fourth 

< ee ry‘ sought the solitude «f te Lu Mountains in order that they might 
"strive for a clean and holy life, Under the leadership of Hui-yiian (4.0. $34- 
Es olan was the founder #3 the sang whe -_ school of tera 


pn Ne 10. * Ibid., Na. 44. * Bid... Mo. 2. * Giron 4.0, 386. | 


C9 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


antique and high in style, and in spirit very lively and realistic. This scroll 
was transferred to me for a book of Sung and Yuan pictures.”” Not a word 
on its religious, ethical, or historical import. And Chang Ch’ou, the great 
seventeenth century critic, in speaking of “‘ The Assembly on the Sea,’”’ gives 
the following description: ‘‘ The landscape, trees, and rocks look unique and 
magnificent; the figures are replete with life, and mingled with all these, the 
mists, clouds, dragons, water, palaces, buildings, and all sorts of things are de- 
picted with consummate skill and care; nor is the style anything but antique 
and graceful.’” What joy it must have been to Lung-mien when under his 
brush this variety of things sprang to life! In another Buddhist painting’ we 
find him making an opportunity to exercise his skill on the depiction of “‘ birds, 
ferocious animals, plants, and trees,one hundred and twenty-five in number.” 
We are delighted that he did them, and positively yearn for a sight of such 
an outburst of imaginative ingenuity; but can this be called a religious influ- 
ence? Buddhism with its endless legends was an additional opportunity for 
the artistic mind to soar; but so had Taoism also functioned before it, and 
every tributary state that the artists had heard of but never seen, and all the 
innumerable spirit-tales that in China are even older than any of these other 
vehicles of poetic and pictorial expression. 

The only Buddhist painting that helps us to feel a contact between that 
religion and the life of the Chinese is the picture of “‘ The White Lotus Club,’’ 
a group of high-minded officials, priests, and literary men who in the fourth 
century‘ sought the solitude of the Lu Mountains in order that they might 
strive for a clean and holy life. Under the leadership of Hui-ytian ( a.p. 334— 
416), who was the founder of the Ching-t’u (Pure Land) school of esoteric 
Buddhism, they settled in the Tung-lin ( Eastern Forest) Monastery, and 


‘Category III, No. 10. * Ibid., No. 44. *Ibid., No. 29. * Circa A.D. 386. 


[igs ai 


Chinese Painting 


made it a condition of membership to the club that applicants should be 
“utterly devoid of worldly ambitions and free from all passions.’’ It is recorded 
that Hsieh Ling-yiin (a.D. 385-433), the greatest and proudest scholar of 
that period, had a pond dug and planted with white lotus for Hui-yian, to 
signify his desire to join the club, ‘‘ but Hui-ytian rejected him on the ground 
that Hsieh was not peaceful at heart.”’ The philosopher and poet T’ao Yiian- 
ming, on the other hand, was always a welcome guest, even though he was 
not a Buddhist. There were eighteen members of the club, of whom ten 
were Chinese priests, two Hindu Bikshus, and the rest famous scholars, her- 
mits, and retired officials. They have always been known as “the eighteen 
wise men of the Lu Mountains,” or “The White Lotus Club,” and their fol- 
lowers eventually reached the number of two hundred and twenty-three. This 
early Buddhist club in the wilds of the Lu-shan range is of importance because 
India offers no precedent for such an organization, and because it represents 
one of the first patent evidences of the effect of Chinese customs on the Bud- 
dhist faith. In China such a mode of group life for the scholars or Taoist her- 
mits was an ancient institution, as has already been pointed out.* “‘ The Lotus 
Club” made no novel contribution, therefore, to Chinese culture; but on the 
other hand, a life such as the members led in contact with nature must have 
helped considerably to eliminate from the Buddhist creed the subjective tend- 
encies with which it had come from India. The only other historical Buddhist 
painting is that of “ Bodhidharma, the first Chinese Patriarch, handing the Robe 
of Office to his Successor,” but this concerns itself with Buddhist rather than 
Chinese history and does not decrease the conviction which the rest of the 
Buddhist pictures give us, that Buddhism in China, though a powerful mental 
stimulus, was ever a thing apart and never became one of the closely inter- 


"Page 31. *Category III, No. 63. 


[ 94 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


woven tissues of Chinese life that both the Confucian and Taoist systems 
prove themselves to have been. 

Upon another of Li’s famous Buddhist paintings, “The Assembly on the 
Sea,”* we find the following significant quotation from the Hua Hsi, which 
seems to indicate that some of the Buddhists repudiated Lung-mien: “While 
none of the scenes is foreign to the Buddhist creed, I must take exception to the 
division into four groups . . . which shows conclusively that Po-shih could not 
shake off the ideas of a Confucian scholar.’’ However, as a Confucian scholar, 
Lung-mien would feel obliged to know, and actually did know intimately, 
the philosophy of so widespread a religion as Buddhism, which even in his 
own country had played its role. While describing Li’s various talents, the 
Hua Chi’ mentions that ‘he studied Buddhism, comprehended its doctrines, 
and acquired a keen understanding of its hidden meanings,” treating the 
question, in other words, as a purely intellectual interest, a matter of research, 
as this great philosophic system would still be to the student of to-day, but 
not in the least a question in which religious faith was involved. 

If we wish to be very literal, Li’s proportionate interest in Buddhism can 
also be estimated from the fact that of the two hundred and twenty-one paint- 
ings described in the catalogue, forty-three (not counting the second class 
paintings in the Ch’ien-lung catalogue which are probably copies ) are Bud- 
dhist, forty are horse paintings with historical allusions and therefore Con- 
fucian in character, the others all purely Confucian in bent, with the excep- 
tion of an occasional Taoist subject. Among these Buddhist pictures are many 
that were copied merely because the originals were famous paintings by such 
ancient masters as Wu Tao-tzti and Yen Li-pén; for example, in the case of 


333 


the painting ‘‘ Drunken Taoist Priests,’’* which might be suspected of having 


*Category III, No. 10. ’ Chaps 3,.D..2.0; * Category III, No. 62. 


[95 J 


Chinese Painting 


a partisan Buddhist slant, the original was made by Yen Li-pén for a heavy 
cash payment which the Buddhists collected among themselves, in retaliation 
for a well-known humorous portrayal of “A Drunken Buddhist Monk” that 
wounded their sectarian pride. As Yen Li-pén executed his commission with 
great skill and wit, a new tradition of artistic excellence was established, and 
painter after painter, Li Lung-mien among them, was tempted to try his hand 
at the now famous subject. As Li has also portrayed “A Tipsy Buddhist 
Monk,’ his utter impartiality and quite general criticism or condonement of 
this priestly foible is amply demonstrated. 

Thus we find from a study of his paintings and their inscriptions that,though 
not in a religious sense a Buddhist, Lung-mien had an excellent knowledge 
of Buddhist teachings and sufficient interest in them and their influence on his 
country to interpret them, at times in original paintings, at times because of 
the additional Confucian spur of famous precedent. He deals with the Bud- 
dhist legends as a poet would, and his love of them is no more an indication 
of his beliefs than are his representations of Taoist fairies or of the demons 
of popular spirit-worship. In fact, it is of just this highly imaginative side of 
Chinese art that the Buddhist subjects are, psychologically speaking, an ex- 
tension. They added, from this point of view, no new element; but they 
brought additional material in an abundance and variety that delighted the 
fancy and the skill of Li Lung-mien, and charmed from his brush an exquisite 
world that we might otherwise have missed. 

Thus, from the aesthetic and religious point of view the Taoist and Bud- 
dhist paintings are on a par; but Taoism as a mental stimulus had other im- 
portant factors that Buddhism did not possess. What makes the Taoist paint- 
ings infinitely more significant to Li Lung-mien, and to us as well, is the fact 


* Category III, No. 61. 


[ 96 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


that they are so closely interwoven with the life of the Chinese, that they make 
comprehensible many of their ideals, their history, and customs, as well as the 
origin of much of their finest literature. They seem to touch all moments of 
the country’s development, link lightly but securely the earliest culture with 
that of Li Lung-mien’s own time; they made him realize, even as he painted, 
how much of himself was one with these successive generations of impulsive 
scholars who had followed the call of freedom and left him golden records 
of their quest. When he painted Buddhist Lohans, he expressed what he, no 
doubt, greatly admired; when he painted Taoist hermits and poets, he was 
expressing his very self. 

But not his whole self. Beautiful as are the vistas that Taoism reveals, the 
widest aspect of China’s broad realms will ever be seen through the eyes of" 
a Confucian. It is his staunch Confucianism that makes Li Lung-mien differ- 
ent from the painters of all other lands, that made him excel in breadth of 
vision many even of his own countrymen. Religious influences there have 
been a plenty in the arts, and nature has stirred other breasts than those of 
the Taoists, but nowhere and at no time has a man essayed to depict the social, 
ethical, and political history, all that was preéminent, all that was noble and 
exemplary in the thought and action of his race. The life of the court and 
that of the lowliest peoples, modernity and antiquity, the pleasures of child- 
hood and the wisdom of the sage, the conqueror, the poet, foreign countries and 
foreign conquests, the emperor who loves beauty more than a throne, and the 
peasant who becomes powerful because of his benevolence and wisdom, these 
and many,many more are made real for us under the influence of his magic 
brush. To study all these Confucian subjects, and no doubt the catalogue enu- 
merates but a small part, is to live over again, as Li Lung-mien so constantly 


lived it, the age-long story of the Chinese race. 


Peo 708 


Chinese. Painting 


What, beside this lofty inspiration, this panorama of a great people, is the 
temporary influence of religious legends? These have lost their vitality long 
ago, but the tale of how Mencius’ mother brought him up, which was a thou- 
sand years old when Lung-mien illustrated it, is still being repeated by the 
literati in the market-places of the remotest Chinese hamlets, and his picture 
of this philosopher would still mean to them what it once meant to him. We 
who are outside of this glorious and unbroken development may get the same 
reaction of beauty from ‘‘’The Lohans Walking upon the Sea,”’ or from the 
portrait of “‘Laotzi Delivering the Tao Té Ching”’;* but to understand even 
these and see them in their relative importance, we must perceive clearly that — 
Taoism and Buddhism were ever subsidiary to the main stream of Confucian 
life, feeding it, enriching it, and then dying out because they had given what 
they had to give. 

It is precisely because Li Lung-mien was so wholly within the Chinese 
tradition that he was so great, for it gave him a variety of subjects and tech- 
niques that no other Chinese artist has ever to the same extent possessed. 
The earliest of the Chinese painters were exclusively Confucian figure paint- 
ers, though they occasionally did a Buddhist subject; and even the more 
widely interested T’ang artists had their specialties. The monumental Wu 
Tao-tzu confined himself largely to the portrayal of Buddhist figures; Wang 
Wei was equally devoted to landscape; while Han Kan was known exclu- 
sively for his pictures of the horse. Li Lung-mien, as a scholar, reviews for 
us the history of great persons and great events; as a philosopher, he illus- 
trates the great moral treatises and the important social developments, giv- 
ing to Taoism and to Buddhism their due consideration; and as the adequate 
interpreter of such widely divergent topics, he was obliged to be just as 


* See illustrations, Nos. 15 to 20. 


[ 98 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


skilled in painting figures as landscapes, landscapes as architecture, still-life, 
horses, or a multitude of other art phases that so broad an interest would 
imply. Never before and never since has a Chinese artist essayed so wide a 
field, and none can give so noble, so exact, so varied a view of Chinese life 


and manners. 


IX 
Ove of Li’s activities that points to his Confucian attitude of mind as much, 
perhaps, as any, is his great zeal as a collector of China’s ancient bronzes and 
jades, and his reputation of being, in these matters, the greatest connoisseur 
of his day. Nor was collecting with the Chinese the blind instinct for amass- 
ing possessions, the expression of vanity, or, at best, the vague pursuit of 
beauty that it is to-day. The first element in their very general love of an- 
cient art-objects was profound respect for the products of their ancestors, and 
the hope that a scholarly examination of these products would give the most 
immediate understanding and the closest possible contact with the life and 
thought of the age that had produced them. To achieve this end great learn- 
ing was necessary, a knowledge of ancient forms of writing, of history, of 
customs often become obsolete, of a multitude of other recondite subjects, 
besides sensitiveness to the patine, the quality, the form, and the workmanship 
of a bronze or jade. Together with the scholar-statesman Ou-yang Hsiu 
(A.D. 1017-1072 ), Lung-mien was a forerunner,’ in this field, of a long line 
of Chinese collectors and critics, and deserves special credit for helpmg to 
arouse the interest and zeal of his more famous and more powerful suc- 
cessor, the Emperor Hui-tsung, to whose preservative efforts we owe so 
much of the Chinese art that has survived until to-day. Particularly did 


* Hirth, Ancient History of China, pp. 72, 73. 


[ 99 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Hui-tsung express his admiration of Li’s paintings; but, as we shall see, he 
acquired not only all of these that he could find, but all of Li’s collections as 
well; and in the construction of his famous catalogue of ancient jades and 
bronzes, the Hsiian-ho-tien Po-ku-t’u, he was inspired by and frankly fol- 
lowed a catalogue that Li Lung-mien had written and illustrated of his much 
smaller collection. This assertion is based upon the following paragraph in the 
T’ieh-wei-shan Ts’ung-t’an’ of Ts’ai T’ao, the son of Hui-tsung’s famous 
premier, Ts’ai Ching ( A.D. 1046-1126): “Li Po-shih, being very fond of the 
antique, made drawings of his entire collection as well as pieces that he had 
seen or heard about, and he also wrote descriptions of all these. He gave 
his work the name K’ao-ku-t’u [ Id//ustrated Studies in Ancient Art]. This 
work had been in circulation without attracting much notice until the years 
Yiian-fu [1098-1100], when the late old emperor [ Hui-tsung’)] began tak- 
ing a great fancy to it. It was about the first year of Ta~-kuan [1107] that 
his late majesty compiled the Hsiian-ho-tien Po-ku-t’u [ Comprehensive Illus- 
trated Study in the Ancient Art of the Hsiian-ho Palace} after the style of 
Kung-lin’s K’ao-ku-t’u.”’ 

The biographical section of the ‘‘ History of the Sung Dynasty,” to estab- 
lish Lung-mien’s position as a collector and student of antiquities, gives a pic- 
ture of the deference that was paid to his judgment by his fellow-officials. It 
says in part: “Fond of ancient art, he became a good decipherer of rare [an- 
tique] characters. Of [bronze bells], caldrons, libation-cups, and other ves- 
sels that have existed from the Hsia [2205-1763 B.c. _] and Shang [1766-— 
1122 B.c._] dynasties downward, he could always give a decision as to their 
age and decipher their seals and marks. Whenever he heard of a fine piece, 
he would spend without hesitation an enormous sum to acquire it. At the end 


"Chap. 4, p. 24. 


[fe 1008 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


of Shao-shéng [ a.D. 1094-1097] the court came into possession of a royal 
seal of jade which was submitted to the scholars in the Ministry of Cere- 
monial for their opinion. Every man had a different idea, but Kung-lin said: 
‘Seals of Ch’in [221-207 B.c._] were made of jade produced at Lan-t’ien.’ 
Now the jade of this seal is perfectly green in color. The characters engraved 
on it are of the “dragon, earthworm, bird, and fish” type. That shows it was 
used as an emblem by which an emperor was invested with divine power.’ 
Then the jade itself shows the quality of the greatest hardness. The only way 
of cutting it was by means of a k’un-wu knife* and toad’s fat.‘ But since this 
method of carving was lost to the world long ago, there can be little doubt 
that this seal is a genuine work by Li Ssu of the Ch’in period.’ This decision 
settled all disputes.” 

Li’s own collections seem to have been very extensive, as the Hua Chi 
assures us that “his whole house was full of them.” Of the paintings he pos- 
sessed we find only two mentioned, one by Chan Tzi-ch’ien (sixth century ), 
called “‘Going to the North [ Tartary ],’’and another by Han Kan which came 
from his father’s collection, entitled ‘“‘ The Training of Horses by the Keeper 


*The fact that the jade in question came from Lan-t’ien corroborates Li’s attribution, as this was a famous 
source for fine jade up to the Han dynasty. (See Laufer’s Jade, p. 24, note.) 


* The jade seal as an emblem of the emperor’s divine right to rule had been first used by Shih Huang-ti, 
founder of the Ch’in dynasty, to replace the nine sacred bronzes that had so long demonstrated the divin- 
ity of the House of Chou. Though the usual myth assigns the origin of the jade seal to a supernatural be- 
ing, the idea was really conceived by the Premier Li Ssti, because he possessed among many other talents, 
the secret art of softening jade with toad’s fat before carving it with the k’un-wu knife. 


*The Chinese, though so fond of jade, were never able to invent a knife sufficiently sharp and strong to 
carve this hard stone; the k’un-wu knife, of which the exact source is disputed, seems to have been of west- 
ern origin, and all the books agree that it was singularly serviceable for the cutting of the hardest Jade. 
Under the k’un-wu blade they became as ‘‘soft wax’? or ‘mud’? or ‘* wood.’? 


“The softening of jade with toad’s fat was an old discovery of the ‘‘ searching-for-the-secret-of-long-life’’ 
sect of Taoism, but is spoken of as a long-lost art as early as the eighth century. The T’ang Materia Medica 
says the toads were boiled to obtain the fat and that it was not easy to prepare. 


roi 


Chinese Painting 


of the Imperial Stud”’;’ but he must have possessed many more originals by 
the artists whom he particularly admired, in addition to the vast number of 
copies which he made of masterpieces that could not be purchased. An amus- 
ing and very human account of Li’s impatient pursuit of a famous horse 
painting is given in the “ Yi-Shu-Tien” section® of the great Chinese Ency- 
clopaedia, the T’u-shu Chi-ch’éng. Li had heard that Chung-hsiian* was on 
his way to the capital, and knowing him to possess a painting by the Prince 
of Chiang-tu,’ a famous painter of horses, Li could not bear to wait for the 
traveller’s arrival, but went several days out from the capital to meet him and 
begged for a look at the painting. Chung-hsiian said to him, “It is not that 
I am reluctant to show it to you, but here on the road it is so much trouble 
to get it out. After all, it would not be too late if you would wait until I have 
arrived at the capital.” Li, however, entreated him day and night, and finally 
it was produced for him. When Li saw it, he heaved a sigh of admiration and 
was much perturbed. By the time they arrived at the capital Li had obtained 
the loan of the painting. For several days he tried with all his might to copy 
it, but he was utterly at sea how to begin. So he sent the painting back with 
a white piece of board attached inscribed as follows: “‘ A most inspired paint- 
ing of the very first class. Horses by the Prince of Chiang-tu. I have examined 
it for several days without being able to let fall my brush [ to copy it]. The 
only thing I can do is to inscribe these words to show the homage I feel for 
the painter.”’ As the silk was very dilapidated, Li also recommended a man 
to repair it. 7 
What purports to be a list of Lung-mien’s jade collection is set forth in 


the Néng-kai-chai Man-lu of Wu Tséng, a book that was written about the 


"Category I, No. 15. * Section 794, p. 12. *Canonized title of Fan Ts’un-jén, died 1101. 


*Li Hsii, nephew of the Emperor T’ang T’ai-tsung. 


Me seb 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


time of Li’s death or shortly thereafter. The author quotes an inscription from 
Li Lung-mien himself concerning an ode written by Li’s great friend, the poet 
Tung-p’o, and then enumerates the various pieces, which, however, do not 
tally with his total: ‘In the eighth year of Yiian-yu [a.p. 1093], when I 
[ Kung-lin] was holding my official position in the capital and staying in a 
house near the Red Bridge, my son came into possession of a Ma-tai’ stone 
which had been the property of Sub-Prefect Chén Yen-mo of Chia-chou. I 
liked it so much that I took it into my study. One day Tung-p’o dropped in 
and said: ‘Let us hollow it out and make it into a basin so that now and then 
you can take out all the jades you have collected and give them a bath. Then 
we will engrave the forms of all your pieces on the four sides of the basin and 
I will write an epigrammatic ode to be cut around the rim. We will call it the 
“Jade Bathing Basin.”’ The jades referred to are sixteen in number, namely, 
Hu [image of tiger _], one pair; Ch’ti [rings ], three; a Lulu belt-buckle; one 
Pi [ ornament for lower end of the scabbard ]; one Péng [ ornament for mouth 
of scabbard]; a jade cup of russet color with carvings in relief; a Shui-Ts’ang 
[ girdle-pendant] with designs of water and fish-tail; a mantis-shaped belt- 
buckle; a woman’s head ornament, Chia; a piece called Chéng and one 
Kung-pi [great disk ].’” | 
The author then goes on to say that after Kung-lin’s death, the basin disap- 
peared. Years afterward the Emperor Hui-tsung, having been told about it, 
sent messengers to Li’s house to look for it. There the basin still was, hidden 
away in a heap of dusty rubbish. Li’s son Shé handed it over to the imperial 
envoys, but not before he had carefully obliterated Tung P’o’s ode, for though 
the author was long dead, his works were then under a severe ban through 


*Ma-tai means ‘‘horse step’? or mounting block. Its significance here is not clear. 


* Of these many are described and illustrated in Bks. VIII and X of Lii Ta-lin’s K’ ao-Au-?’u (edition of 1753). 


> ey ey 


Chinese Painting 


political intrigue, and any one caught with so much as a line of his writings 
was guilty of /ése mayesté. Carefully the old stone was wrapped up, put in a 
lacquered box, and transferred to the Hsiian-ho collection, where it was pre- 
served together with the jades in honor of which it had originally been de- 
signed. One of the jade pieces, however, was missing, the Lulu ring, for this 
had been buried with the remains of Li Lung-mien. 

What Kung-lin unquestionably prized most highly among his objects of 
virtu were his bronzes. For these he was willing to sacrifice any sum, and often 
he would paint pictures in exchange for specimens that money could not buy. 
One of the pieces that he loved most was a libation-cup that had belonged 
to Emperor Tsu-ting (1465-1434 B.c.) of the Shang dynasty; and to its 
owner, Ts’ai T’ien-ch’i, a well-known painter and literary man, he addressed 
a poem which states that the very best bronzes are of the period of Shun 
(2258-2206 B.c. ) and of Yii (2205-2198 B.c. ), while the inferior ones can be 
placed not later than the period between the Chou ( 1122-249 B.c. ) and Ch’in 
(221-207 B.c. ) dynasties. However, he adds,‘ When your standard of taste is 


too high, you receive from this everyday world only mockery and ridicule.” 


xX 
In 1087, Li Lung-mien painted ‘‘ A Poetical Gathering in the Western Gar- 


221 


den,’’* the most important of his contemporary paintings, because it contains 
the portraits of all the poets and scholars whom Lung-mien counted among 
his friends. Of this subject I have seen, in an oriental collection, the small ver- 
sion on a round fan, but even without a glimpse of the originals, the spirit of 
the picture lives for us in a descriptive essay’ written by the versatile and bril- 


"Category II, No. 12. *In the Commentary on Su Tung-p’o’s poems. 


[104 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


liant Mi Fei, who was himself a member of this famous gathering. As the 
essay gives so much of the atmosphere of the times, such an intimate view 
of Lung-mien and his favorite companions, as well as of their mode of enjoy- 
ing life, it is here reproduced in full with all its glory of color and its wealth 


of interesting allusions. 


“Li Po-shih has made, after the style of General Li, the younger,’ a landscape in colors 
in which the water, rocks, clouds, grass, trees, flowers, and bamboo are done with con- 
summate skill. The human figures are very life-like, and their expressions show none of 
the dusty and vulgar traits commonly seen in the everyday world. It is certainly an 
extraordinary piece of work. 

“Among the figures, the one that wears a black hat and a yellow Taoist robe and is 
writing with a brush, is my master, Tung-p’o; the one wearing a peach-shaped cap and 
grape-purple robe, who sits watching beside him, is Wang Chin-ch’ing;* the man in a 
turban and blue dress, sitting with his elbowson a square table,and gazing intently | onthe 
master’s writing | is Ts’ai T’ien-ch’i* of Tan-yang; another who looks on, with his hands 
on the back of a chair, is Li Tuan-shu.* Behind them a pretty girl, beautifully dressed, 
stands in attendance; her expression and carriage show that she belongs in a rich and 
aristocratic house. She is one of the handmaidens in Wang Chin-ch’ing’s household. 

“Under a pine-tree, that spreads out its branches in all directions, on which a creep- 
ing plant with red flowers has entangled itself, is a large stone table littered with antique 
objects and a scholar’s harp. Close by, in the midst of plantains, sits a man on a stone 
seat. He wears a Taoist hat and a grape-purple robe; his right hand rests upon the stone 
while the left one holds a book which he is reading. This is Su Tztt-yu.’ In a round 


"Son of the famous T’ang landscape painter, Li Ssi-hsiin. 


* Wang Chin-ch’ing, or Wang Hsin, in whose garden the gathering took place, was the son-in-law of the 
Emperor Ying-tsung (a.p. 1064-1067), and a famous painter and poet of the period. 


*Ts’ai T’ien-ch’i, or Ts’ai Chao, wrote a biography of Li Lung-mien which it was not possible to find. 
*Li Tuan-shu, or Li Chih-yi, another well-known scholar, was secretary to Su Tung-p’o. 


° Su Tung-p’o’s younger brother. 


[ 105 ] 


Chinese Painting 


hat and a coarse silk robe is Huang Lu-chih [Shan-ku] sitting in contemplation. The 
figure in a turban and rustic coat, painting on a scroll the scenes from Ytian-ming’s 
‘Kuei-Ch’ii-Lai,’ is Li Po-shih; the man that stands behind Li, with his hands on Li’s 
shoulders, is Ch’ao Wu-chiu.’ The one that kneels with a stone in his hand, watching 
Li at his work, is Chang Wén-ch’ien,’ and the one in a Taoist hat and white robe, with 
his hands on his knees, looking down at the picture, is Chéng Ching-lao.* Behind them 
is a servant-boy who stands with a staff in his hand. 

“Under an ancient pine-tree, whose roots writhe in distorted forms above the earth, sit 
two figures. The one, in a turban and white dress, who seems to be listening, with his 
hands in his sleeves, is Ch’in Shao-yu,’ the other, in a Taoist hat and grape-purple Taoist 
robe, playing on a harp, is Ch’én Pi-hsii.” One figure, in a cap of the T’ang style and a 
long, loose robe, writing, with his head up, on a tall piece of rock, is Mi Yiian-Chang;° 
and the man in a turban, watching him, with his hands in his sleeves, is Wang Chung- 
chih.’ Right in front of them stands a little servant-boy with bobbed hair, who holds an 
antique ink-stone in his hands. Back of them all, further on, is seen a stone bridge, and 
a bamboo-shaded path meanders away to the farthermost part of a clear stream. 

“Under some luxuriant green foliage sits a Buddhist, in a Kashaya,on a rush cushion, 
discussing the theory of ‘non-existence’; he is the eminent priest Ytian-tung.* Beside 


*Ch’ao Wu-chiu, or Ch’ao Pu-chih, a famous scholar and poet who took T’ao Yiian-ming for his master. 
He was one of Su Tung-p’o’s four disciples. 


* Change Wén-ch’ien, or Chang Lai, was a prominent writer and famous for his ‘‘tzu’’ poems, that is, poems 
intended to be put to music and sung. Not many of the poets excelled in this field. He also was one of Su’s 
four disciples. 


* Chéng Ching-lao, a noted scholar. 


* Ch’in Shao-yu, or Ch’in Kuan, was also a master of ‘‘ tzu,’’ poems written to be sung. He was another of 
the four distinguished disciples of Su Tung-p’o. 


* Ch’én Pi-hsii, or Ch’en Shih-tao, a noted essayist whom Su Tung-p’o admired so much that he wished 
to take him under his wing, as he did his four other disciples, but Ch’én refused the honor. 


* Mi Fei himself. 
"Wang Chung-chih, a well-known scholar. 


* Yiian-t’ung is Fa-hsiu, the priest who is supposed to have persuaded Li Lung-mien to give up the paint- 
ing of horses. He was also called ‘‘iron-faced ’’ because of his severity of character. 


Payikelsnig 


se 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


him is a man in a turban and rustic coat, who is listening. This is Liu Chii-chi.’ They 
sit on a piece of grotesque-looking rock, beneath which is a torrent that runs down to 
the large stream. ‘The murmuring of water as it flows over the rocks, the sound of wind 
among the bamboos, the natural fragrance of grass and plants, nothing in the world can 
exceed these in repose and natural beauty! Alas! those that struggle to live in the arena 
of fame and riches and never have the wisdom to retire from it, what chance have they 
to enjoy happiness of this kind? 

“From Tung-p’o down, the figures number altogether sixteen, and among them are 
found great essayists, scholars, poets, calligraphists, archaeologists, and an eminent priest. 
They all stand high above the mundane, and their names create a stir even among the 
foreign races outside of the four boundaries of China. People in after generations who 
have the opportunity of looking at this picture, will, I believe, not only appreciate the 


painting, but can gain some understanding of each and all of these men.” 


The first point of importance to be noted is that Li did this painting, which 
from the very nature of its subject must have been an original, in the style 
of Li Ssu-hsiin, in colors, for it disposes entirely of the theory often stated in 
Chinese art literature and frequently repeated in our own, that Lung-mien, 
in making his original paintings, used only ink. What a lavish use of color it 
must have been! The yellows, purples, blues, greens, and reds fairly crowd 
one another; and so exquisite is his art that Mi Fei, in true Taoistic fervor, 
forgets he is looking at a painting and begins to describe for us the murmur 
of the water, the sound of the wind in the bamboo, the odors of grasses and 
plants. Also Mi Fei takes the trouble to inform us that of all these intellectual 
leaders, only one was a Buddhist, and he quite characteristically is discussing 
non-existence. 

To go into the histories of all these men would carry us too far afield, and 


*Liu Chii-chi, or Liu Ching, was noted for his prose essays. 


ito7z 


Chinese Painting 


we must confine ourselves to a consideration of those who throw most light 
upon the life and character of Li Lung-mien himself. Perhaps the greatest 
contrast is Mi Fei, the author of the essay; and it is a tribute to Lung-mien 
that a man whose whole temperament and work was so opposed to his own 
should still have been so great an admirer of his. Mi Fei, as his Hua Shih 
proves, wasa very severe critic both of an artist’s character and of his works; 
and though his opinions often had a personal bias, his approval was given 
only to the mightiest, and then often but grudgingly—especially to men 
who, like Lung-mien, avowedly followed in thought and technique the tra- 
ditions laid down by their great predecessors. For Mi Fei was the rebel of 
his age. In his spirited essay, the Hua Shih, he dismissed great painters like 
Kuan T’ung* and Li Ch’éng’* with a wave of the hand, because he felt in 
them a slavish adherence to precedent, and even Lung-mien was reproached 
for being too much influenced by the style of Wu Tao-tzu. He realized, how- 
ever, that here was a man who was strong enough to transcend the very 
models that he followed, and he accorded him as much in his deferential si- 
lences as in his voiced approval, a respect that few others ever received from 
him. 

None of Li’s contemporaries brings out more clearly the nature and scope 
of his mentality; for Mi Fei, though an amazing calligraphist, an interest- 
ing painter, and a critic of acute perception and a vitriolic pen, was as one- 
sided in his work and as unbalanced in temperament as Lung-mien was broad 
and poised, both in his art and in his character. The one, moreover, was as 
egocentric and vain as the other was modest and unpretentious. Of the two, 
Mi Fei no doubt would make a greater appeal to the modern artist; for he 


"Great landscape painter, who lived a.p. 907-932. 


* One of the most famous of Chinese landscape artists of the late tenth century. 


(SeroSia 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


was an iconoclast of ability, hated traditions on principle, and did not hesitate 
to declare that few of the painters of antiquity could equal him. Some of his 
rapid ink-sketches resemble strongly the impressionistic drawings of to-day, 
just as the tone of his art criticisms in the Hua Shih sounds, for all the world, 
like the manifesto of any one of the new art-movements that were lately 
being issued by our younger men. He is the archetype of all art rebels, an 
extremely modern-minded man, highly intelligent, and as skilful as he was 
brilliant. His use of broad masses of modulated ink to indicate surfaces and 
volumes was a valuable development of the calligraphic technique; and his 
own paintings in this style, as well as the work of his son, that is so often 
attributed to him, are among the loveliest and most poetic landscapes that 
China has ever produced. Magnificent as is his style, we eventually reach 
the point of saturation, and are bound to admit that as a painter, Mi Fei had 
but one mood and one manner, whereas Lung-mien had as many styles and 
strokes as he had ideas. The one artist was specifically aesthetic in his vision, 
with the exaggerated love of technique that such mentalities invariably de- 
velop; the other traversed the whole range of Chinese thought, its history, 
its philosophy, its literature, its art, and turned from figure painting to land- 
scape, to horse painting, architecture, still-life, or all of these together, in 
order to express his multitudinous interests in Chinese life and letters. 

Mi Fei can be considered an example of the purely Taoistic temperament 
that is absorbed very largely in self-expression, whereas Lung-mien is more 
of a Confucian whose interests must include all the cultural manifestations 
of his race. He is no less original than the eccentric Mi Fei, but he may be 
said to have individuality, whereas Mi Fei expresses that much narrower 
thing called personality. In short, Li Lung-mien’s character exhibits that 


element of self-control, that sense of order, of balance, and precision which, 


[ 109 J 


Chinese Painting 


when we find them in our occidental artists, we define as classical, just as Mi 
Fei’s character, in which the passionate element dominates that of reason, 
we call romantic. 

Another man whom Mi Fei was obliged to call master was Su Tung-p’o, 
the closest friend of Li Lung-mien, whose name flits in and out and across 
the catalogue like some benign and loving spirit that wishes through all the 
ages to send forth its revering and appreciative influence, and still remains 
to insist, in many poems and inscriptions, that the world shall rightly esteem 
these works of delicate and ennobling beauty. If the soul of Lung-mien rises 
from the descriptions of his paintings, that of Tung-p’o is scarcely less inter- 
twined with them; the wondrous calligraphy and inspiring thoughts of the 
poet are so often interpreted by the illustrations of his painter friend that their 
minds in these common products have become inextricably mingled, and to 
tell of the life and ideals of Tung-p’o is to draw nearer to the thought and 


striving of Lung-mien. 


XI 
Su Tunc-p’o, also called Su Shih, was the most prominent figure of his day, 
for besides being its greatest calligraphist, poet, essayist, and critic, he was, 
together with Wang An-shih, its most constructive social thinker, whose writ- 
ings were the terror of the Reformists because of the clarity and the cutting 
brevity of their style. It was not alone for his remarkable mentality, however, 
that Li valued Tung-p’o’s friendship, but for his companionable qualities, his 
lovable good nature, his conscientious loyalty, his open-minded and out- 
spoken way of seeing life, and his unfaltermg purpose to keep his actions on 
the same plane as the highest level of his thought. Whenever both men were 


in the capital, from 1069 when they first met, up to 1094 when Su’s ever 


sinner 7 


The Iniellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


frank criticism of the government earned him his final banishment, these two 
men were constantly together in work or in play, in the examination halls 
or out among the rocks and streams that they both loved with such rever- 
ential wisdom. Many were the paintings they did together of which we still 
have the record, many the essays that Su wrote and Li illustrated in so superb 
a manner that later comment could not decide whether the calligraphy and 
literary style of the former or the pictorial skill of the latter was the more 
remarkable.’ Even after his banishment to a remote and uncivilized island, 
we still find Su making explanatory comments on his friend’s paintings,’ 
showing that contact between the two men did not cease even under the most 
difficult circumstances, and fully disproving the statement made by Shao Po’ 
that Li forgot to honor his absent friend to the extent of averting his head 
when he met the banished statesman’s sons and relatives in the streets of the 
capital. Because of the part he played in the public arena of the times, we 
have a more detailed account of Su Tung-po’s life than of that of Li Lung- 
mien, the retiring scholar and artist, who deliberately spent most of his years 
in quiet and unrecorded pursuits; and it is therefore helpful in understanding 
the more hidden life of Lung-mien to see what glorious manner of man was 
this, the closest of his friends. 

Su Shih was born in 1036 and was therefore Li’s senior by about ten years. 
His mother, who had entire charge of his education, must have given him the 
best of training, for at twenty Su had mastered all the classics and history, 
and the following year he had passed his final examination for public service. 
After he had held numerous secretarial appointments in outlying districts, 
the Emperor Ying-tsung, who greatly admired Su’s literary ability, made 


*See Category I, Nos. 10, 31. Category V, Nos. 5, 14. * Category I, No. 31. 
*In his Wén-chien Hou-lu, Chap. 27, p. 6. 


igelet tap 


Chinese Painting 


him, in 1065,a member of the Imperial Academy without the usual formality 
of an examination. When the prime minister demurred, His Majesty replied: 
“That is a rule for applicants of whom we are doubtful; but who can doubt 
Su Shih’s qualifications?’’ As Su’s father died in this year, he was obliged 
as a good Confucian to return to his home for the three prescribed years 
of mourning; when he came back to court in 1069, the face of the world 
was changed, for a new emperor was on the throne and Wang An-shih 
had for a year, as prime minister, had full scope for his ambitious plans to 
reform the political and economic systems of the empire. Su and Wang were 
old friends; each admired the other’s scholarship and literary accomplish- 
ments; but they could no more agree on political questions than ‘‘ice could 
agree with burning charcoal.” Su’s inability to subscribe to Wang’s efforts 
toward greater communization was due to the heavy taxation that would 
be necessary to meet the costs of such extensive operations and to the com- 
plete upheaval it would mean in the free and loosely organized empire 
which still relied, as China always had, upon the family as the real nucleus of 
authority. | 

In spite of the fact that Su found his political opponent at the head of the 
government, he had not the slightest intention of accommodating his views 
to those of Wang. His first duty was to work for the interests of the people, 
his second to protect his emperor from instituting laws that would be inimical 
to the country’s welfare. Aside from these purposes he had no private ends 
to serve, and consequently he never failed to oppose Wang An-shih when- 
ever he attempted a change of custom that Su considered detrimental to the 
people or to the emperor’s reputation as the guardian of his flock. 

Wang was zealous for the progress of his ideas and equally convinced that 


his were the only happy solutions of the political difficulties. Being a man of 


einem] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


energy and daring who brooked no interference, he eliminated Su Tung-p’o 
from the situation by appointing him to a small government position outside 
the capital. However, when Wang, who really seems to have stirred up every 
one of our modern struggles, began to alter the official examinations with a 
view to making them more practical by eliminating the classics, Su was hor- 
rified. As was his privilege or that of any other citizen, he appeared before 
the throne to denounce the imperial tendency “to give ear too readily to sug- 
gestions from all directions and advance men too hastily to responsible posi- 
tions.” To this protest he added a memorial of ten thousand words which is 
one of the most straightforward, sharp, and yet persuasive pieces of polemi- 
cal writing that the world has ever seen. 

Wang was so enraged that he ordered the court censors to create charges 
against the author; Su faced the trial serenely and with utter indifference, 
refusing to say a single word in his own defence; and as the government 
could not substantiate the charges of the censors, the case was dismissed. 
Realizing the power of his opponents, Tung-p’o of his own accord asked for 
an appointment in the provinces. 

In 1076, when Wang himself had been dismissed from the imperial service, 
his successor, Lii Hui-ch’ing, who had an even greater hostility to Su Shih, 
tried to have him sentenced to death, but—the emperor interceding—suc- 
ceeded only in having him banished to the remote district of Huang-chou 
(Hupeh ). Here Su, in spite of the crude, semi-civilized surroundings, refused 
to make himself unhappy and, dressing ‘in a turban and a pair of grass slip- 
pers, he roamed about in the hills, mixing freely with the farmers and vil- 
lagers of the neighborhood.” Apparently the Emperor Shén-tsung (1068- 
1085) had a great fondness for him and never forgot him even in banish- 


ment, for we find that he wished to recall Su in 1082; this having been made 


foot isoe| 


Chinese Painting 


impossible by opposition of high court officials, he nevertheless issued an 
autographic note to the following effect: ‘Su Shih has been too long away 
in banishment. As there is a dearth of men of talent, we do not consider it 
expedient to suffer him to remain in idleness any longer. Let him be trans- 
ferred to Ju-chou [ Honan)].”’ Thus the people learned that Su was still in 
the emperor’s favor, but before the decree could be carried out, Shén-tsung 
had died. 

Fortunately the empress dowager, who now took up the reins of goy- 
ernment, was just as kindly disposed toward Su. Recalling him, she rapidly 
advanced him to a fellowship in the Imperial Academy and appointed him pre- 
ceptor to the youthful Emperor Ché-tsung (1086-1100). Even while hold- 
ing this court position, Su continued both in speech and in writing his usual 
attitude toward the government officials, criticizing them, remonstrating with 
them, and satirizing their doings in the frankest and most undaunted manner 
whenever he thought it necessary. One day while he was reading with the 
young emperor, they fell into a discussion concerning existing political con- 
ditions, and Su made the following observations: ‘‘The present government 
is exceedingly indiscriminate in rewarding the meritorious and punishing the 
unworthy, so that the former get no encouragement and the latter no re- 
straint. ... The Western Hsias* lately made an inroad into a certain dis- 
trict, causing innumerable losses in killed and missing. The commanding gen- 
eral of that military division has never reported the loss to the court, nor has 
the court taken the least trouble to investigate the matter. I point this out as 
typical of conditions throughout the country. I fear that such practices will 
lead to the gradual decay and disruption of the empire.” As the high officials 
resented these criticisms, Su, realizing that he would be driven away from 


* A powerful Tartar kingdom founded in 1032. 


C114 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


court, hastily asked for an appointment in the provinces, and was transferred 
in 1089 to Hang-chou, where he had once before held an official position. The 
natives welcomed him as an old friend and Su, as during his previous resi- 
dence, spent his time carrying out several projects in their interest. Among 
other things he opened up and beautified the famous Western Lake, which, 
together with his other benefactions, so endeared him to the people that his 
brother in his epigraph states: ‘Each house had a scroll of his portrait to 
which they prayed at every meal and they subscribed for the erection of a 
‘living temple” in which to worship him.”’ 

Su was recalled to court in 1091 to become once more preceptor to the 
emperor, and in 1093, the year in which the empress dowager died, he held 
the post of Minister of War. In the meantime the reform party had gath- 
ered in strength and, now that his friend and protector was gone, Su was 
again forced to accept a provincial appointment. Before leaving, however, 
on his last day of residence in the capital, he wrote a parting memorial for the 
young emperor as a guide during the political difficulties and confusion that 
his experienced eye could see developing. Among his last words of warning 
were these: ‘The good government and peace of a country depend wholly 
upon the free communication between the ruler and the ruled. During peri- 
ods of ideal government, the humblest subject was free to make known to 
the emperor his wishes and his woes, but when trouble and disorder pre- 
vailed, even the officer nearest to the emperor was denied the right to voice 
his complaints.”’ 

This was the last effort that Su was permitted to make in behalf of his 
sovereign ; for in spite of the fact that he withdrew to provincial seclusion, the 
hatred of his political enemies reached out and, through the emperor’s weak- 


*A temple built in a man’s honor during his lifetime. 


[ast oF] 


Chinese Painting 


ness, had him permanently exiled, first to Ying-chou (Kuangtung ), then 
further south to Hui-chou. After three years, the government officials, fear- 
ing his powerful personality even at that distance, had him banished to Chiing- 
chou, Island of Hainan, where he was confined in one of its smaller districts, 
known in ancient times as Ch’an-chou. It was a wholly uncivilized commu- 
nity, but he speedily won over the natives, who helped him to build a hut of 
bricks and earth. His brother informs us that he lived under these trying con- 
ditions most contentedly, and maintained a happy frame of mind by occupy- 
ing his time with calligraphy, drawing, reading T’ao Yiian-ming’s poems, and 
composing others after the same style. 

The great Hui-tsung, when he ascended the throne in 1100, granted a 
general amnesty to all political offenders, and Su was permitted to return to 
civilization; but his health had been broken and he reached his home and 
family in Ch’ang-chou ( Kiangsu) only two months before he died. His last 
words were: “I have done no wrong in my life, and I shall not fall when I 
die.”” This was the answer of the staunch Confucian and Taoist to the Bud- 
dhist fear of metempsychosis. When the news of his death was reported, 
“‘the natives of Wu and Yiieh [Kiangsu and Chekiang ] shed tears in the 
market-places; all the men of education and culture came to the house to 
offer their condolences; a general lamentation there was throughout the 
whole empire and hundreds of students from the National University came 
to the monastery where his funeral service was held.” Upon the portrait that 
in their youth Li Lung-mien had made of him,’ Su, just before his death, 
penned a short poem which shows that though he maintained what seemed 
to his contemporaries a happy and contented exterior, he was profoundly 
saddened by the political conditions of his country and his own inability to 


* Category II, No. 56. 


PyakG wy 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


contend successfully with what he considered the harmful tendencies of the 
day. 

Your heart is like the dead wood, 

Your body like a drifting boat; 

Pray, what services have you rendered? 

Huang-chou, Hui-chou, Ch’ an-chou! 


The last line names the provinces to which he was banished in the order of 
time and remoteness, these being the only results that he could see to his 
never ending struggle for the welfare of his countrymen. 

This was the character of Li Lung-mien’s closest associate; and surely a 
life of such calm and intelligent self-immolation is the best answer to those 
critics who have found in Confucianism nothing but a narrow office-seeking 
bureaucracy. Here is no struggle for place and power, no exhibition of per- 
sonal enmity, no blind adherence to political party or doctrines, but the sacri- 
fice of all that man usually cherishes, of family association, of a peaceful ex- 
istence, of friendly affections, and of that life amid civilized people and sur- 
roundings which must have been incomparably precious to such cultivated 
sensibilities; all this Tung-p’o surrendered in order to maintain his ideals of 
justice and do battle for the welfare of his fellow-citizens. In the eyes of this 
true Confucian, the ruling classes, the culture and learning of the nation—all 
its spiritual conquests—are of value only inasmuch as they serve the future 
happiness and well-being of its people; and nowhere can this ideal be more 
beautifully exemplified than in the lives of those innumerable heroes who, 


like Su Tung-p’o, were both its products and its victims. 


ieeiet 728] 


Chinese Painting 


XII 
Sucua gloriously unselfish life was in part due to the fact that the Chinese 
were never haunted by our morbid struggle for the saving of the individual 
soul. Their evolutional view of things made the self as evanescent as a sum- 
mer cloud; and nowhere do we find this more directly and more beautifully 
expressed than in Tung-p’o’s two essays on “ The Brownish-red Wall,” with 
which Lung-mien indicated his agreement by making eight illustrations for 
the text.’ The title is taken from the name of a certain hill near the Yangtze, 
the scene in the third century of an important naval engagement in which 
many of the contestants greatly distinguished themselves. One moonlit, misty 
evening, Su was boating on the river near this hill with friends, of whom Li, 
no doubt, was one; and so exquisite was the beauty of the night that they felt 
themselves as if alone in a world not their own. One of their number played 
upon the flageolet a tune so tearful and plaintive that the last note seemed 
to echo and reécho for a long, long time before it died away. Dismayed and 
chilled by this music, Su shook himself and questioned his friend as to the rea- 
son for his sadness. The friend thereupon gave a magnificent picture of the an- 
cient naval battle and of its greatest hero, T's’ao Méng-té. After his victory 
he sailed down the stream at the head of his powerful fleet which, prow 
to stern, stretched a thousand li, its flying standards so numerous that they 
almost screened the sky from view; and serenely contemplating the river, 
cup in hand, spear held crosswise, Ts’ao composed his poem of victory. “ Yet 
where is he to-day?’ asks Su’s melancholy companion. “As for you and 
me,” he continues, “‘ we have fished and gathered fuel along the river and its 
isles; we have fraternized with the fishes and been on friendly terms with 
the deer, and now, sailing in a frail boat, we are pledging one another with 


"Category V, No. 5. 


Ree Maes nog 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


wine. [ We have indeed been happy], yet our life in this world will be no 
longer than that of the ephemeridae, nor are we [in comparison with our 
_ environment’} any bigger than a grain of corn in a vast ocean. | deplore the 
shortness of life. 1 envy the way in which this river rolls on forever. If only 
we could roam about arm in arm with the high-soaring rishis! If only we could 
embrace this bright moon and remain with it as long as it exists! But ] know 
such hopes can never be realized, and I was expressing m y regrets in the sad | 
[that I have just been playing |].” | 
Oh, my friend,” Su replies, “have you never studied the river and the 
moon? The one rolls on and on, but it never disappears; the other [ seems to] 
wax and wane but [in reality’) it never dwindles or increases. Thus if things | 
‘ are considered from the point of view of their changing conditions,even heaven 
“and earth last but for the twink! ung of an eye; but if viewed from their un- 
changing nature. things, as well as we ourselves, may be considered eternal. 
This being the case. why need vo ftBeD. 2 TOL,aHT thing?” 
“This is a beautiful steterment of the ChifSle¥BAdS)ion of life. He who seeks 
individual survival has net yet been released from his ego. We live not in and 
“for ourselves, not in the fone which we personally may achieve, but in those 
~ who come after us and constitute our eternity, our only true immortality. For 
- this reason we find again and again in Li Lung-mien, as in all Chinese thought, 
i the love for that environment which mirrors our own continuity, and contempt . 
for the personal ambitions and vanities which mark the weaker side of human 
nature. This is also the thought that created family worship, with its reapect 
for all that is great and beautiful in the past, and its attempt institutionally to 
preserve that past, as the ipa dete s ances that man can make to the 
_ future of his fellow-men. 
It is not surprising, ir in the light of such a monistic theory of life, to find in 


i a oa 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


wine. [ We have indeed been happy], yet our life in this world will be no 
longer than that of the ephemeridae, nor are we [in comparison with our 
environment ] any bigger than a grain of corn ina vast ocean. I deplore the 
shortness of life. I envy the way in which this river rolls on forever. If only 
we could roam about arm in arm with the high-soaring rishis! If only we could 
embrace this bright moon and remain with it as long as it exists! But I know 
such hopes can never be realized, and I was expressing my regrets in the sad 
music [ that I have just been playing J.” 

“‘Oh, my friend,” Su replies, ‘“‘have you never studied the river and the 
moon? The one rolls on and on, but it never disappears; the other [ seems to ] 
wax and wane but [in reality ] it never dwindles or increases. Thus if things 
are considered from the pointof view of their changing conditions,even heaven 
and earth last but for the twinkling of an eye; but if viewed from their un- 
changing nature, things, as well as we ourselves, may be considered eternal. 
This being the case, why need you feel envy of any other thing?”’ 

This is a beautiful statement of the Chinese conception of life. He who seeks 
individual survival has not yet been released from his ego. We live not in and 
for ourselves, not in the fame which we personally may achieve, but in those 
who come after us and constitute our eternity, our only true immortality. For 
this reason we find again and again in Li Lung-mien, as in all Chinese thought, 
the love for that environment which mirrors our own continuity, and contempt 
for the personal ambitions and vanities which mark the weaker side of human 
nature. This is also the thought that created family worship, with its respect 
for all that is great and beautiful in the past, and its attempt institutionally to 
preserve that past, as the only real contribution that man can make to the 
future of his fellow-men. 


It is not surprising, in the light of such a monistic theory of life, to find in 


[ 119 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Su’s comments on various Taoist and Buddhist pictures of Li’s, that same ab- 
sence of sectarian religious fervor that we have already remarked in Lung- 
mien himself. In the painting of the ‘Western Garden” Su is described as 
wearing a Taoist robe, and we find him in one instance’ calligraphing as a 
gift for a friend of his the Huang-t’ing Nei-ching scriptures, a very difficult 
Taoist text, to which Lung-mien added some illustrations. The transaction 
has not the slightest suggestion of religious piety, for the only comment Su 
makes is in the nature of a frank appreciation of the great art that he and 
Li had displayed in the work. ‘All is done in such a superfine style that it is 
really a rare treasure in the world.” At the end Li adds the portraits of the 
calligraphist, the friend, and himself. Again Li paints a portrait of Laotzti’ as 
a gift to another Taoist friend, and Tung-p’o writes a poem in appreciation 
of the excellence of the picture, the whole emphasis being upon the art, quite 
regardless of the subject’s supposed sanctity. If any doubt were left on the 
point, it would be eliminated by a letter which Tung-p’o writes a propos of an- 
other painting® of Li’s, this time a Buddhist subject, the Bodhisattwa Ti-tsang, 
King of Hell, who declared that he would not seek for Buddhaship until he 
had delivered all the occupants of hell. Su, evidently having been asked by 
a friend what he thought of Li’s picture, writes back: “‘I have never made a 
study of this subject. How then can I tell which ancient master’s standard he 
has reached in this picture?’’ An attitude such as this throws the whole ques- 
tion of religious painting into the intellectual and artistic field. 

If the men of this age felt no need of what we should define as a religious 
sentiment, they did-not hesitate to cultivate their minds with every form of 
human thought that lay at hand. Tung-p’o himself was so keenly interested 
in the philosophic unity that had resulted through the interaction of Taoism 


*Category III, No. 20. * Ibid., No. 28. *Ibid., No. 60. 


Bealeton a 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


and Buddhism that he wrote a commentary on Laotzii’s Tao Té Ching for the 
purpose of demonstrating the common origin of the two religions. The nu- 
merous works of similar character written at this period to show that Con- 
fucianism was in harmony with the other two forms of belief prove the cath- 
olicity of the age; though the Sung scholars had not sufficient naiveté to be- 
come religious partisans, they had the intellectual breadth to see the value 
that lies hidden in every sincere manifestation of human thought or sentiment. 

As a natural accompaniment of their broad interests, we discover frequently 
a fine regard and respect for the religious feelings of others. It is recorded 
of Li Lung-mien’s Buddhist painting of ‘‘ The Ten Great Disciples’”’ that it 
was done at the request of Tung-p’o in the year 1093, “to pray for his late 
wife, Wang.” Among the less intellectual ranks to which Tung-po’s wife may 
readily have belonged, Buddhism was still a force during the eleventh cen- 
tury and indeed much later, and nothing would be more characteristic than 
a liberal-minded acceptance on his part of his wife’s beliefs, whatever direc- 
tion they might take. Lung-mien occasionally manifests a similar attitude of re- 


tee 


*or ‘ Reverently drawn”; 


spect when he signs a picture “ Devoutly drawn,” 
but this is only the decorous behavior of a well-mannered people toward sub- 
jects of sacred origin. 

Though we find scattered through the catalogue of the paintings many 
expressions from Tung-p’o concerning the great merit of Li Lung-mien as 
a man and as an artist, we nowhere get a more definite statement of his ad- 
miration than in an inscription which he wrote on Li’s ‘Illustrations for the 
Book of Filial Piety.”’* “We who look at this painting at once feel a sense 
of duty toward our own parents spring up powerfully within us. The style 
of the whole certainly does not seem to be inferior to Ku K’ai-chih and Lu 


‘Category III, No. 13. * Ibid., No. 33. * Ibid., No. 36. * Category II, No. 13. 


(ea eh 


Chinese Painting 


T’an-wei, but when we come to his portrayal of the scenes from the eigh- 
teenth chapter,’ in which the artist purposely brought out in such a delicate 
manner all that should make a son very sorrowful, we realize that this pic- 
ture could have been done by none but a superior man of high principle; and 
in this respect even Ku and Lu, we believe, could not come up to the stand- 
ard of our artist.”” As these two ancient masters represent all that is most 
glorious in the traditions of Chinese art, there could be no higher praise. Nor 
is this judgment the natural exaggeration of a personal friend, for Su was 
too great a critic to be influenced in his opinion by extraneous considerations. 
Though many of the historians are content to say that Li was merely the 
equal of the ancients, we have the opinions of several other Chinese connois- 
seurs corroborating Tung-p’o in this assertion that Li Lung-mien was the 
greatest and most varied of all their artists. The Hua Chi’ claims that “his 
transcending genius surpassed that of all other men. Scholars say that he 
painted horses better than Han Kan, in Buddhistic art his standard was fully 
up to that of Wu Tao-tzi, his landscapes equalled those of Li Sst-hsiin, his 
figure painting that of Han Huang. Nor were their statements exaggerated.” 
This author implies that Li was greater than or equal to the old masters in the 
special field of each, that he embraced in his production their aggregate merit, 
and in some ways even surpassed the best that had existed before his day. 
One of the most interesting of Tung-p’o’s disquisitions on the art of his 
friend is the essay he wrote on Lung-mien’s painting of his ‘“‘ Homestead in 
the Hills.”* As these two congenial scholars must have spent much of their 
time among the scenes which this picture sets forth, we no doubt get from this 
essay the reflection of things over which they had together lovingly lingered, 
of Li’s method of working, carefully observed by his companion, and of some 


* The chapter on mourning. *.Chap. 3, p. 2 b: * Category V, No. 14. 


[ 122 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


of their conversations, as they rambled over the hills, on the topic of art and 


its relationship to life. 


“Lung-mien Chii-shih’s depiction of his home in the hills will enable a man of later 
generations to find his way in the Lung-mien hills no matter where his feet may carry 
him. It will seem to him as if he were walking among things of which he has dreamed, 
or as if he were remembering incidents of a former life. The springs, the rocks, and 
plants that he sees in the hills, he recognizes at once; the fishermen, wood-cutters, and 
recluses that he meets in the hills, he knows immediately, even though he cannot call 
them by name. 

“Ts all this due to the painter’s memory? I reply, ‘No.’ Take a man, for instance, who 
wants to paint the sun. He does not forget what the sun is like, and yet his picture may 
look more like that of a penny bun. Again, a man, however drunk he may be, does not 
try to drink with his nose; nor will a man, in a dream, try to fetch things with his feet. 
Why? Because instinct will guide him to do these things in the proper way without 
the aid of a good memory. Thus it is that Chti-shih, when living in the hills, did not let 
his mind linger upon any particular thing, but his spirit communed with all that he 
found there, and in this way expanded his knowledge of the arts and industries. 

“There are philosophers and there are artists, and there are philosophers who are not 
artists and cannot express with the hand what they have in mind. But I have seen Chii- 
shih’s ‘Scenes from the Hua-Yen Sutra,’ which he did purely from imagination, and 
yet the spirit of his picture is in every way faithful to the teachings of the sutra. Now, 
if he could make his work so fit the words of the Buddha or the Bodhisattwa that both 
seem to be the product of one mind, need we be surprised at his depiction of things 


that he had actually seen with his own eyes?” 


When Li and Su painted pictures together, the former is supposed to have 
done the figures while the latter filled in the scenery. In the records which we 
have of their jomt compositions,’ Su, in two cases, painted the rocks and, in 


"Category II, No. 54. Category III, Nos. 4, 25. Category V, No. 18. 


[23.06] 


Chinese Painting 


one instance, contributed a dead tree, while Po-shih did some clear water with 
swimming fishes. Judging from the subjects and descriptions, these were not 
serious pictorial efforts, but sketches done for their own and their friends’ 
amusement, evidently atsome festive gathering.Su’s younger brother, Tzii-yu, 
and their friends, Liu Chung-yiian and Huang Shan-ku, seem always to 
have been present; for often they wrote poems or added inscriptions which 
indicate that these drawings were the product of intimate occasions, to be 
thought of only as the records of their playful moods. 

One such gathering with its diversions is still recorded for us, as the set- 
ting happened to be of an official nature. Tung-p’o, having been appointed 
chief examiner in the first month of the year 1088, invited Li Lung-mien, 
Huang Shan-ku, and other famous scholars to act as his assistants in read- 
ing the papers. Since the examiners were not allowed to leave the building 
until the work was completed, they were often confined, as in this instance, for 
more than a month. To pass the time they amused themselves in all sorts of 
ways; they even called into service the planchette and asked the summoned 
spirits to write verses, but more often they resorted to their favorite diver- 
sions of calligraphy, painting, and poetizing. On one occasion ‘‘ Po-shih had 
some pain in his stomach, so to amuse himself he made a picture of a horse 
rolling in the dust.”” Huang,’ thus made aware of his own dusty condition, 
expressed in verse his strong desire to go home and have his clothes washed. 
We know of at least two other horse paintings* which Li made during this 
incarceration, whose fame has ever endured with Chinese collectors because 
in their eyes Lung-mien’s pictorial skill is equalled if not surpassed in merit 
by the poetic and calligraphic genius which Tung-p’o’s and Shan-ku’s in- 
scriptions display. 

"Category I, No. 40. *Ibid., Nos. 10, 19. 


[ 124 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


XIII 
As we derive most of our information concerning these latter events from 
Huang Shan-ku, pupil of Tung-p’o, we must turn our attention to this dis- 
ciple who, next to his master, was the closest friend of Li Lung-mien and one 
of the outstanding figures of the day. All the men, in fact, whom we have 
mentioned,except Wang An-shih, who was much older, formed a literary co- 
terie with Tung-p’o for its central figure, toward whom all others looked for 
criticism and for affectionate guidance. It was in 1078, when Huang Shan-ku 
was a young and unknown instructor at the National University that Tung-p’o 
first discovered his prose and poetical writings, and made him immediately 
famous throughout the empire by the mere fact of his praise. “It is long since 
the world has seen compositions such as these,” he declared, and from that 
time on Huang became attached to Tung-p’o as one of the four distinguished 
scholars in the house of the Sus.’ As soon as he became associated with Su 
Shih, Huang Shan-ku was regarded as another enemy by the Reformists, and 
was forced on several occasions to share his master’s fate of banishment to 
remote provinces. After his graduation in 1067, he held minor positions in the 
provinces until, in 1080, he was made a district magistrate. From 1085 to 1093 
he remained at the capital, holding such positions as junior secretary in the Im- 
perial Library and in the Department of National History. At the end of this 
period, the reform party being in authority once more, he, like all other Anti- 
Reformists, was accused of some imaginary insult to the government and was 
summarily banished to Ch’in-chou in modern Sstch’uan. When Hui-tsung 
ascended the throne, the general amnesty that was declared brought Huang 


Shan-ku back to the capital as it did so many other political exiles; but his 


‘These four distinguished disciples of Su Tung-p’o were Ch’in Kuan, Chang Lai, Huang Shan-ku, and 
Ch’ao Wu-chu, all of whom were mentioned in the painting of the ‘‘ Western Garden.’’ 


[utes a 


Chinese Painting 


enemies soon found a pretext in some of his historical writings for ridding 
themselves of him once more. This time he was sent to Yi-chou, in modern 
Kuangsi, where he died in 1105, a year before the death of Li Lung-mien. 

It was in 1086 that Huang and Li first met in the capital; but they were 
not unknown to each other before this, for Huang states in an introductory 
note to one of his poems that during the period 1078-85 he had written a 
letter to Li, asking him to make a portrait of the poet-painter Wang Wei, 
whom they both venerated.* The friendship between Lung-mien and Shan-ku 
was not so long continued nor so deep as that with Su Shih. But we are in- 
debted to Shan-ku for much information, particularly about the horse paint- 
ings, and for an understanding of the joyous, companionable side of their com- 
mon lives while the three artists were permitted by a kind fate to spend most 
of the seven years from 1086 to 109 at the capital in each other’s company. 
In 1086 the turbulent leaders of both political parties, Wang An-shih the re- 
former and his opponent, Sst-ma Kuang, had died, and China was permitted 
one of those few peaceful, prosperous, halycon eras which were ever her most 
productive ones as well. As for Lung-mien, the catalogue places more of his 
paintings in this period than at any other, many actually dated, others that we 
can safely assign to these years through well-substantiated surmise. Nor do 
we wonder at this when we think of the many beautiful and happy scenes that 
now tempted the artist’s brush. For it was then that he and his gifted friends 
were often gathered together by an appreciative host in the ‘“‘ Western Gar- 
den”’ for such joyous literary and artistic festivities as Li Lung-mien has him- 
self described; it was the time of long hours spent together in the Academy or 
in the examination halls, when the poems of one inspired the paintings of the 
other, or a successful drawing might evoke the calligraphic skill of a third; or, 


* Category II, No. 16. 


ete an 


- The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


pleasantest of all, it was their only opportunity to wander in each other’s com- 
pany through forest and field, under a sky that for a little while, at least, held 
no threatening clouds, no ominous gloom. Many are the common works that 
were the product of this period of sunshine; and certain it is that these were 
the happiest years of their lives, for at the end came renewed banishment for 
Li’s two friends, and though they seem to have maintained a contact through 
correspondence, there is no indication that they ever saw each other again. 
Either Shan-ku was chiefly attracted by his friend’s depiction of horses, 
or Lung-mien happened at the time of their association to prefer this subject, 
for we find most of Shan-ku’s inscriptions on paintings of this sort. A great 
interest in this field of artistic expression was no personal idiosyncrasy on the 
part of Lung-mien, but another example of his fine fervor in the matter of 
national traditions. For the love of the horse, as well as the enthusiasm for its 
artistic possibilities, is very old indeed in China. The earliest representations 
of horses which we still possess are on the stones of the Han dynasty; but by 
that time the appreciation of the horse was already a matter of sport, indi- 
cating a long development from some much remoter stage, when, as the only 
means of locomotion, horses were valued for their usefulness. As early as 
the Han dynasty, the emperors had celebrated stables and did not hesitate 
to go to any length to secure the famous animals that were bred by the 
Tartar tribes. The great Wu-ti, for example, when the people of Ta-ytian* 
refused to surrender to him their wonderful steeds, sent a punitive expedi- 
tion against them in 104 B.c. under General Li Kuang-li. The campaign 
lasted four years before the general could return from the Far West with 
a selection of the coveted “superior” horses in his train. To celebrate this 
event the emperor had a triumphant song written on “‘ The Heavenly Horses 


“Modern Ferghana. 


BAL aN 


Chinese Painting 


of the Extreme Occident,”’ one verse of which Lung-mien used as the basis 
for a painting.’ 

In Hirth’s translation of ‘The Story of Chang K’ien,” we read’ that “as 
the Son of Heaven [ Wu-ti] had such a fancy for the horses of Ta-yiian, 
ambassadors sent to procure these horses followed upon one another’s heels 
all along the route. Such missions would be attended by several hundred men. 
As arule, more than ten such missions went forward in the course of a year, 
and at the least five or six. Those sent to distant countries would return home 
after eight or nine years, those to nearer ones, within a few years.” In the 
same interesting account, it is recorded that the people of Wu-sun, a nomad 
tribe situated a thousand li northeast of Ta-yiian, who wished to conciliate 
the powerful Han Empire, at one time presented a marriage gift of a thou- 
sand horses, which so mollified the Chinese that they sent the Princess of 
Kiang-tu, a relative of the emperor, to be the consort of the King of Wu- 
sun. These horses, however, were not prized so highly as the larger and 
stronger type from Ta-yiian; and when the Emperor Hsiian-ti in 65 B.c. 
again succeeded in overawing this country, his chief reason for rejoicing was 
the fact that he obtained as tribute their renowned “ Dragon-like” horse.’ 

Scarcely any of the stone pictures of this period that has come down to us 
fails to include one or more horses in its representations. It is amusing to think 
that Buddhism is supposed to have introduced the love of animals into a coun- 
try where a man’s horse was his friend centuries before Buddhism existed. 
Long before its advent in China, the imperial stables harbored famouschargers 
whose reputations for beauty or speed passed down into history as would 
the ability or character of a great person. The “ Dragon-like”’ horse, the‘ Pur- 
ple Swallow,’ the “‘ Phoenix-headed”’ horse from Khotan, and the “‘ Brocade- 


* Category I, No. 19. * Page 103. * Category I, No. 11. 


ates 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


legged” horse from Tung T’an, were each an individuality, as distinct and 
definite in the minds of this horse-loving race as that of some well-known 
scholar or poet. The names of these horses, particularly those that ‘sweated 
blood” and “travelled a thousand leagues a day,’’ are sometimes thought to 
be mere transliterations of their foreign names and occasionally this may be 
so, but usually these appellations are too descriptive and poetical to leave any 
doubt that their origin and significance are both Chinese. 

From art records we learn that, after the Han dynasty, the tradition of 
horse painting was nobly maintained by such eminent artists as Lu T’an-wei;’ 
but the next great epoch in which the horse was especially celebrated was 
the reign of the Emperor Ming-huang ( a.p. 712-756 ). His stud, which is said 
to have included forty thousand specimens, was no less famous than that of 
his Han predecessors; and the “ Eight Horses of the Emperor Ming-huang’””” 
was in his time and ever remained a favorite subject with Chinese painters. 
Polo was a popular sport, played, it appears, even by the women of the court,’ 
and another diversion of this artistic emperor was the development of a troupe 
of acrobatic riders. A painting in my collection which brings back most vividly 
this life-loving, pleasure-seeking period, is an evocation by the contemporary 
artist Chang Hsiian of the Imperial Park, while the sensitive and dreamy 
monarch, surrounded by a small group of the loveliest, most fragile-looking 
women companions, surveys with mild attention a wildly galloping charger 
upon whose side clings, with superhuman skill, the slender form of a female 
musician. It is an almost impossible feat of horsemanship, but the group on 
the bamboo balcony, half shaded by the branches of gracefully drooping wil- 
lows, is but gentle in its interest and judicial in its attitude. 

Only in studying the paintings of this age can we recreate for ourselves 


‘Fifth century figure painter. * Category I, No. 26. * Category II, No. 58. 


[ 129 ] 


Chinese Painting 


the intense love of the horse which no doubt the Tartars first developed and 
transferred to their more civilized neighbors. In these horse portraits, for such 
they were, the manes are carefully combed, the coat is curried to an amazing 
gloss, the heads are almost human in their expressiveness, and marvellous 
ornaments, even rich jewels, hang suspended from the beautifully arched 
necks. Beside them, but quite subsidiary in importance, are represented the 
proud owners, whose eyes, riveted upon their pets, glow with an intensity of 
affectionate admiration; the impression of perfect understanding between 
master and beast is so convincing that these paintings vie in their appeal with 
any portrayal of purely human relationships. 

It is therefore not surprising that such powerful emotions should have 
stimulated the very greatest talents and created during this period the three 
artists who (with the exception of Li himself) were the greatest of China’s 
horse painters, Ts’ao Pa and his two pupils, Ch’én Hung and Han Kan. The 
work of the T’ang masters, though highly original, was based directly upon 
the Han models in stone, and the products of the T’ang painters were copied 
and studied by Li Lung-mien, as he himself proudly acknowledges. He also 
copied the Tartar horse painters, of whom there were not a few that attained 
distinction ;* but we find a general agreement among the Chinese critics that 
Li’s horse paintings were quite unique in the history of this art and excel those 
of any painter who came before or after him. The only follower who deserves 
to be mentioned is Chao Méng-fu of the Yiian dynasty; but this painter de- 
clares frankly that he never attained the skill of his master, Li Lung-mien, 
who stands unquestionably first in the development of this branch of Chinese 
pictorial art. 

The usual miraculous tales of his skill are found in contemporary literature. 


Category I, No. 14. Category IV, No. 7. 


[ 130 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


The most amusing is a story told by Tséng Yii concerning Huang Shan-ku’s 
inscription on Lung-mien’s scroll of “The Heavenly Horses.’’* Tséng-Yii 
called upon Shan-ku at the capital in the year 1090, and found him in the 
act of penning an inscription on Li’s *T’ien-Ma T’u.” Huang said to him: 
“Such a strange thing has happened! Po-shih made a picture of the horse 
‘Man-ch’iian-hua’’ in the imperial stud, and no sooner had he finished his 
painting than the horse died. It seems that all the vital force of the horse was 
taken out of it by Po-shih’s brush.” 

As we have already seen in the quotation from Li’s contemporary, Hui 
Hung, “‘it was comparatively easy to obtain gold in the capital, but to obtain 
Po-shih’s horse painting was almost an impossibility.” To the grooms of the 
royal stables, however, Lung-mien gladly gave his paintings in return for 
their keen appreciation of his skill. Days and days did he spend in the com- 
pany of these men and their beautiful charges. In Wu-li-pu’s “Chats on 
Poetry ’’* we can feel his enthusiasm for man and beast as he tells in his own 
words how he loved to haunt the imperial training quarters: “ At the begin- 
ning of Yiian-féng period [ a.p. 1078-1085 ], I, Kung-lin, having finished my 
work as a reader of the examination papers in the Southern Academy, again 
took part in helping with the Court Examination which was held at the 
entrance of the Chi-Ying Palace. This gave me opportunities of visiting the 
Royal Guard’s quarters. While there, I saw the men practising archery on 
flying horses, playing the games of hitting the hanging ball and breaking the 
willow branches.‘ Both the men and the horses were big and strong, the 
choicest specimens in the world. It happened just then that his majesty, the 
emperor, had appointed a certain day on which to visit the Pao-tsui Park. 


‘Perhaps wild horses. See Category I, No. 36. * Literally, ‘* Full-stream-flower.’’ 


*Page 34 b. “See also Category I, No. 7. 


[131 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Therefore the strictest supervision of the practising was exercised, and all the 
hits and misses carefully noted. Thus every day and all day without pause, 
until the evening shadows fell upon the scene, I had the pleasure of watching 
this entertainment to my heart’s content.” 

That SuTung-p’o was also interested in Li’s horse paintings is evident from 
the fact that one of his most lauded pieces of calligraphy was an inscription 
which he wrote in the year 1097 while in remote banishment, in appreciation 
of Lung-mien’s “Picture of Three Horses.’’' Apparently the beautiful west- 
ern steeds were still a favorite form of tribute, even in the Sung dynasty, 
for in this painting are shown three famous horses presented to the Emperor 
Ché-tsung by Thibet and Turkestan, and leading them a Thibetan chieftain, 
Kuei-Chang-Ch’ing-Yi-Chieh by name, who had been captured on one of 
the punitive expeditions. 

The story of Li’s renunciation of his passion for horse painting in favor of 
portrayals of Buddhist saints is, as we have already shown, untrue; but, more 
than this, Li defied the Buddhist attitude in the matter by making a picture 
of the famous Buddhist priest, Tao-lin,’ in the act of judging horses. This 
was a terrible affront to the whole sect, since Buddhists were not supposed 
to take an interest in horses, much less rear them, as Tao-lin was fond of 
doing; but it is only one of several instances in which Lung-mien could not 
resist making good-natured fun of his Buddhistic friends. 

The Buddhists were anxious to create and repeat the fable of Li’s re- 
nunciation of his passion for horse painting, because this particular art, as 
we have just seen, established him squarely within an historical Chinese tra- 
dition. Not only did they wish to clear one of their most distinguished reli- 
gious artists of any lay contamination, especially so pagan a one as horse 


*Category I, No. 31. * Lived c. A.D. 314-366. See Category I, No. 2. 


[182.4 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


painting, but they disliked the idea that Li Lung-mien, through this exercise 
of his genius, placed himself definitely under the native Confucian influence 
rather than that of Buddhism. What became of the importance of the reli- 
gious inspiration, if the man who so perfectly portrayed their most sacred 
conceptions could exhibit an equal degree of skill in depicting what to them 
was an abhorred and vulgar subject? Whatever may be said of the Buddhists, 
it cannot be claimed that they were ever eclectic; and they were bound to 
try to free Li Lung-mien, at least as far as posterity was concerned, from this 
taint of Confucianism, of which his great reputation as a horse painter was 
a constant and a peculiarly distasteful reminder. 

Closely associated with the horse paintings are those of “foreign tribes.’’ 
Often it is difficult to determine whether a picture belongs to one category or 
the other, as many of the horses are delineated with the portraits of foreign 
chieftains, and the Tartar and other tribesmen are inevitably accompanied by 
their constant associate, the horse.’ Another reason why Lung-mien and other 
Chinese artists particularly loved to paint pictures of foreign lands lay in the 
opportunity which these unknown people gave them to allow free play to 
their imaginations. They could invent extraordinary animals to their heart’s 
content, some lion-faced, ox-hoofed, and with horns, others ‘‘with a donkey 
face, pig’s ears, horse’s hoofs, and a long mane”’; and they could dress the hu- 
man figures in delightfully impossible clothes, with bushy beards and bamboo 
headgear, to say nothing of the pleasure of drawing their foreign and strange- 
looking features and expressions.’ There is no question that the Taoist and 
Buddhist subjects had precisely the same attraction for the Chinese painters, 
with the added incentive that, in these fields, aside from certain traditions, 
there was even less of hampering fact to hinder fancy from roaming as it listed. 


*Category IV, Nos. 1, 2, 7. * Ibid., No. 5. 


[ 133 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Indeed, in many of the representations of Lohans, admittedly so in those of 
Kuan-hsiu,' the faces are so extraordinary because the painter was striving 
for a strange atmosphere that should convey the characteristics of the foreign 
priests, Tartar or Indian, as the case might be. The Tartar influence on Chi- 
nese art is a very fascinating subject and from the merely aesthetic point of 
view certainly worthy of as much attention as the more discussed and, be- 
cause of its historical associations, perhaps more important question of the 
Buddhist influence. 

Second only in importance to the descriptions of the horse paintings are 
Huang Shan-ku’s accounts of the informal gatherings of the literary and ar- 
tistic men who were his and Li Lung-mien’s associates. The record of one of 
their reunions at the Academy describes the interest which he and his fellow- 
scholars took in Li Lung-mien’s art, how carefully they analyzed his style, 
and how highly they appreciated his exact habits of work. The story is told 


932 


a propos of Li’s painting, ‘‘ Better Than,’’* the title of which is taken from 
a Confucian quotation which asserts that even dice-playing and chess-play- 
ing are better occupations than inaction. ‘During the period of Yiian-yu 
(1086-1093), Huang T’ing-chien, Ch’in Kuan, and several other gentle- 
men, one day when they were in the Imperial Academy and had nothing to 
do, amused themselves by examining paintings. Shan-ku brought forth a pic- 
ture by Li Lung-mien, under the title ‘ Better Than.’ In this picture is depicted 
a group of men of the chess and dice-playing type. There are about six or 
seven men around a board busy with the game of throwing dice into a bowl. In 
the bowl, five black dice may be seen, while the sixth is still whirling around. 
One of the men, looking down into the bowl, is shouting very excitedly. All 
the others who are watching seem to change color and are standing up. In its 


"A noted figure painter who lived c. a.p. 936. * Category I, No. 19. 


[ 134 ] 


PLATE XIII) 
i 


* @ 


> 


Kuan-hsiu) the faces are so extr | ; 
for a strange atmosphere chat sboold comes abd a racteristics of the fc 
priests, Tartar or Indian, as the case might be. ‘The titer infoenos ll 
nese art is a very fascinating subject and from the merely i i 
view certainly worthy of as much attention as the more d 
cause of its historical associations, perhaps more iayortant 
Buddhist influence. 

Second only in importance to the dacdee of the horse ps 
_ Huang Shan-ku’s accounts of the infermal gatherings of the lit 
tistic men who were his and Li Lung-mien’s associates. The r 
their reunions at the Academy describes the interest which hea 
scholars took in Li Lung-mien’s art, how carefully they ar 
and how highly they appreciated his exact habits of work. The 
4 propos of Li’s painting, ‘Better Than,’”’ the title of which is 
a Confucian quotation wagudssecyolht ea Hine. 
ing are better occupations tgrx ineetion) “During the p 
(1086-1093), Huang T’ing-chien, Ch’in Kuan, and overt 
men, one day when they were in the Imperial Academy and I 
do, amused themselves by examining paintings. Shan-ku bro 
ture by Li Lung-mien, under the title ‘ Better Than.’ In this pi 
a group of men of the chess and dice-playing type. There are a 
" seven men around a board busy with the game of throwing dice into a be 
the bowl, five black dice may be seen, while the sixth is still il ng ig a 
One of the men, looking down into the bowl, is shouting rs | 
the others who are watching seem to change color and are st 


i 
OU 


‘A noted figure painter who lived c. a.p.936. "Category Il, No. 19. i a oe 


[C134 J 


ca eR Reed 
ON wae 


Poy 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


composition and its delineation of manners and expressions, all was done with 
consummate skill. While they were extolling the picture to the skies, Tung-p’o 
came in and, casting a glance at it, said: ‘Why, Li Lung-mien is a man of the 
world; how is it, then, that he has adopted the way of the people of Min [ Fu- 
kien] in pronouncing a word?’ All the gentlemen were surprised and asked 
him to explain himself. Tung-p’o said: ‘Within the Four Seas, no matter in 
what dialect, the word “Lu’’’ has ever been pronounced with the lips closed, 
while the Min dialect speaks the word with the lips wide open. Now, in that 
bowl all the dice except one are “six,” and that one is still unsettled. It stands 
to reason that you should call “‘six’’; yet the man who is shouting has his 
mouth open. Is n’t that reasonable?’ Lung-mien, on hearing this, smilingly 
admitted that he [| Tung-p’o] was right.” 

On another of their excursions a@ trois, Tung-p’o and Li painted a picture’ 
to which they gave the title ‘The Priest of Hsiian-sha Fears his own Shadow 
Reflected in the Water,” and Shan-ku explained its meaning in a poem. It 
seems, when young, this priest had a passion for angling which he had to 
renounce upon becoming a Buddhist. In the painting he was shown leaning 
against a tree, looking contemplatively and sorrowfully at some fishes swim- 
ming about in a pool at his feet. Shan-ku interprets his state of mind in a way 
that gives this painting a Daumier-like irony. Though he has achieved indif- 
ference to all things of this world, it worries him to think that at heart he is 
still an angler and that the fishes know him as his old self. No doubt the hero 
of the story was some friend of theirs whom they wished thus to satirize for 
an over zealous devotion to Buddhism. 

Angling, though forbidden by Buddhist teaching, was the favorite sport of 
the Chinese scholar; and as such it figures again and again in Li Lung-mien’s 


*Or ‘‘liu,’? meaning ‘‘six.’’ * Category III, No. 25. 


[tas ey 


Chinese Painting 


catalogue as well as in the records of almost any period of Chinese history. 
It was ever a favorite Taoist diversion but, because of its ancient historical 
character, has its decidedly Confucian aspect as well. As early as 1122 B.c. we 
find, in the history of the Chou dynasty, minute directions given by a farmer 
to the Premier Lii Shang on the finer points of this sport, and succeeding 
chronicles are replete with fishing anecdotes and the lives of famous fisher- 
men from whom kings often sought hints for the improvement of their skill. 
Later it became a favorite refuge of the Taoistically minded from the sordid 
thoughts of a worldly life; they felt that the quietude which angling demands 
soothed a confused mind, and that the concentration which it required made 
them forget the material side of existence. For these spiritual fishermen, the 
catch was a matter of indifference; and many were the scholars who used 
no bait in order that their enjoyment might not be rudely interrupted by an 
unexpected bite. 

Huang Shan-ku, in one of his poems, tells of a painting which Lung-mien 
did of ‘ The Fishing-places of Yen Tzu-ling,”’’ a famous scholar and a school- 
mate of the Emperor Kuang-wu.’ When Kuang-wu ascended the throne, 
Yen hid himself, but the emperor sought him out and begged him to come 
to court. Yen was finally persuaded to consent, and the two friends now passed 
their time together as in their youth; but when Kuang tried to bestow a title 
upon Yen, he refused it and fled to the Fu-ch’un Hills in Chékiang, where 
he busied himself with farming and fishing. At two of his favorite fishing 
places on the Ch’ien-t’ang River, platforms were raised after his death to recall 
to people’s minds the free spirit and unworldly aims of the man who pre- 
ferred this peaceful sport, so full of lessons of self-control, to life at court with 
an emperor’s favor and friendship. 


"Category V, No. 19. * Lived a.p. 25-57. 


Ree cieng 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


XIV 
ines it becomes noticeable through much repetition that the preferred com- 
panions of Li’s daily life were men who lived and died in government service; 
whereas the heroes of the past whom he most loved to portray were those 
who frequently took pride in scorning the bondage, not only of official duties, 
but of any community existence. His close friends, Wang An-shih, Su Shih, 
Su Ché, and Huang Shan-ku, were the leading political and social thinkers 
of their day, men who spent their whole lives, their energy, and their great 
talents in promulgating those theories of government in which they believed, 
and opposing fearlessly those which they considered harmful to the country’s 
welfare. Yet we see these statesmen uniting with Lung-mien in his admiration 
for the great Taoist sages of antiquity, such as Yen Tzu-ling, Hsi K’ang, 
T’ao Hung-ching ,Chang Kuo, and others not yet mentioned, whose rebellious 
mentality seems quite opposed in character to theirs. In a consideration of these 
facts—the official mode of life of the scholars of the Sung period, and the differ- 
ence between their pursuits and those of the ancient scholars whom they most 
admired—we can see reflected the whole development of Chinese thought; 
and, with Lung-mien’s catalogue as our basis, we shall now follow some of the 
changes that took place from the period of Taoist predominance in the third 
and fourth centuries to the gradual rise in the T’ang dynasty and the final 
domination in the Sung dynasty of the Confucian conception of life’s obliga- 
tions. In the Chin dynasty (a.p. 265-420 ), the time of ‘The Seven Wise Men 
of the Bamboo Grove,” the scholar, with occasional exceptions, gave little 
or no direct service to the state, but retired to some solitude and created 
literature that still constitutes an important part of China’s classics. Under the 
T’angs the scholars and poets were of the world, were more amenable to 


official duties, but left both as soon as possible in order to live what remained 


Pars7 ? | 


Chinese Painting 
of their days, as Wang Wei did, in a retired spot among the hills. In the Sung 


dynasty scholars and poets alike were the servants of their government until 
death or disease, as in Lung-mien’s case, released them. The fusion of Tao- 
ism and Confucianism had become perfected and men again sought liberty 
not for themselves alone, but for their fellow-men as well. 

Just as the political situation after the disruption of the Han Empire was 
responsible for the sudden burgeoning of Taoism, so the political turn of 
events again made possible the gradual revival of the Confucian ideal. In the 
third and fourth centuries, the Taoist tendency to turn one’s back on the 
world had been strengthened by disheartening dissensions, rivalries, and con- 
stant warfare between the petty states, by rapidly changing dynasties and 
rulers, by powerful Tartar aggressions, and by a general chaos with which the 
individual was powerless to cope. When T’ai-tsung, the second ruler of the 
house of T’ang, reéstablished order on Confucian lines, the scholars began to 
emerge once more into public places ; and, by the advent of the Sung dynasty, 
the idea of official service was so strong that Taoism remained only as a men- 
tal leaven in a purely Confucian state, creating with its more individual, more 
poetic attitude, an emotionalized intellectualism, a unification of the human 
faculties, such as the world has probably never so clearly experienced. These 
were the three great services of Taoism to the Chinese state: first, that it 
helped to keep Confucianism elastic, self-critical, and progressive; secondly, 
that it maintained the integrity of the individual in a social organization that 
knew no smaller unit than the family; and lastly, that it helped to nullify Bud- 
dhistic subjectivity by insisting upon the importance of the environment. As 
long as Taoism remained a creative stimulus, Confucianism also developed ; 
if, at its first strong efflorescence, it helped to increase the disorder in which 


the Chinese Empire then found itself, if at all times it acted as a centrifugal 


Pete Sins] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


force in the functioning of the state, these things were the inevitable by- 
products of a philosophy of inaction and freedom, and a highly essential ele- 
ment in a society that tended always to become too centralized and too firmly 
stabilized. That this individualism was an invaluable leaven, once the Con- 
fucian state was reéstablished, is only too clearly demonstrated; for when 
Taoism waned, when the great increase of China’s uneducated masses caused 
only its magic side to survive, Confucianism became rigid, became the unalter- 
able, narrow, bureaucratic system which has distorted for western minds the 
wise and benevolent social organization which it maintained for so many hun- 
dreds of years. 

In order to illustrate this development from Chin Taoism to Sung Confu- 
cianism, let us first contrast the character of Li Lung-mien with that of one 
of the great early Taoists, and then trace the changes that took place in the 
lives and temperaments of the prominent literary men that intervened. There 
is no better way of understanding what happened in China between the fourth 
and the eleventh centuries than by comparing Li Lung-mien’s life and his 
work, as we now know it, with the life and work of the greatest of all his 
heroes, the poet-philosopher T’ao Yiian-ming ;* for each can be fairly consid- 
ered the epitome of the social and intellectual conditions of his time, each rep- 
resents the best and bravest aspirations of his day. No less than eight of the 
paintings® are found to bear T’ao Yiian-ming’s name; and if the frequency 
with which Li has pictured the many well-known incidents of this poet’s life 
can be taken as a criterion, then T’ao Yiian-ming is the man who stands fore- 
most among all the ancients in his admiration, and perhaps, if we are justified 
in considering Li Lung-mien as typical, foremost in the hearts of all Chinese 
artists and scholars. 

Lived a.p. 365-427. * Category II, Nos. 6, 22, 23, 46, 54, 55, 63, 73. 


L169" 3) 


Chinese Painting 


T’ao Yiian-ming, cognomen Yiian-liang, who also called himself Ch’ien or 
‘“« The Secluded One”’ after the downfall of the Chin dynasty, came of a highly 
cultured family whose members, from generation to generation, beginning 
at about the second century B.c., had held high government positions, as was 
the custom with the distinguished men of Han. His great-grandfather, T’ao 
K’an, one of the most noteworthy figures in Chinese history, had been com- 
mander-in-chief of a big province,’ and one of his most celebrated sayings 
typifies the alert and active spirit of the Han dynasty: “Yui the Great did 
not waste an inch of shadow.” We, therefore [ who are so inferior to him ] 
must not waste a tenth of an inch of shadow.” The father of Yiian-ming, 
whose life coincided with the years just after the disruption of the Han Empire, 
was the first of his line to show signs of a world-weary and retiring tempera- 
ment, and his son inherited from him much of his seclusion-loving character. 
This leap from prominent government official to recluse in three generations 
of a single family bears out the contention that the sudden development of 
Taoism during these centuries was due to the disturbed political conditions, 
and indicates that the extreme individualism and eccentricities of the Chinese 
scholars in later times are largely due to the fact that their ancestors for four 
centuries were driven to such behavior through lack of an efficient central 
government. 

Yiian-ming’s chief claim to fame rests upon a poetical-prose essay entitled 
‘Homeward Let Me Turn,’’’ which has ever remained one of the most im- 
portant pieces of Chinese literature. It is an exquisite crystallization of the 
constantly growing tendency of the Chin scholars to turn their backs upon 
the strife and pettiness of the turbulent political world, to seek instead the 
calm and the independence of an isolated existence. No greater piece of liter- 


"Modern Honan. * Meaning, of course, that he wasted no time. * Category II, No. 23. 


[ 140 J] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


ature has been produced to express the Taoist side of the Chinese mentality, 
and it is no exaggeration to say that, in its influence and moral effect upon 
men of every religious belief and philosophical school in China, it is not a whit 
inferior to the Canons left by the great sages or their apostles. In reading the 
famous letter of the Taoist Hsi K’ang, one feels an individual and personal 
contact with this type of mind; but in Yiian-ming’s “‘ Kuei-Ch’ii-Lai,”’ there 
is something universal, something that speaks of an age-long development 
and the gathered emotions of all the poets and scholar-recluses who had felt 
the same overpowering need of freedom. It interprets in a few sentences the 
poetry, the force, and the profundity of an irresistible racial tendency. Not only 
Yiian-ming, but an unending line of the wisest and sweetest, most contented 
of human minds, speaks in this essay of its early passionate struggle with the 
vanities of life and its final glad solution of the problem. 

In his introduction the author explains the subject of the essay and how it 


came to be written: 


“My family has ever been poor. Even with the produce of our farm, our wants have not 
always been sufhciently supplied. I hated to go far away in search of a position, but find- 
ing that the magistracy of P’éng-tsé is only about one hundred li from home, I applied 
for the post. Before having held it very long, I was homesick and anxious to return. The 
fact is that one really cannot force one’s self to do what is not in one’s nature, and to act 
contrary to one’s nature is hateful even though one is threatened with the immediate 
danger of hunger and cold. Consequently, I dismissed myself from my official post, 
having held it only about eighty days. And I write this to give vent to my feelings, en- 


titling my composition “Homeward Let Me Turn.’” 


The joyous outburst of a great spirit, freed from unendurable bondage, is dif- 
ficult to reproduce in any language but its own; and the very form in which 


it is cast, a poem in rhymed prose, to say nothing of the exquisiteness of the 


[ 14u 9] 


Chinese Painting 


language with its wealth of delicate allusion, makes it impossible to hope to 
give in translation more than the shell of this beautiful composition, without 


even so much as the shell’s resonance. 


“Homeward let me turn! My field and garden lie neglected; why should I not return ? 
I have already suffered my mind to be enslaved by my body; but why give myself up to 
sorrow and regret? 

“Let the past be the past. The future is easily within my reach. I may have lost my 
way, but I have not strayed far from the path and I am convinced that my present 
course is right, the one of yesterday wrong. 

“My boat, rocking lightly, drifts gently onward; a breeze stirs my cloak pleasantly. 
I ask a fellow-traveller to direct me, for alas, the light of dawn shines but dimly. At last 
I see my house, my own! In ecstasy I run forward. 

“Joyously do my servants issue forth to meet me and my children stand eagerly wait- 
ing at the gate. My Three Paths’ have fallen into ruins, but my pine-tree and chrys- 
anthemums still flourish. I enter the house holding my little ones by the hand, and lo, 
my jars are full of wine. Taking a jug and cup, I beguile myself with drink; a glance 
at the trees in the court brightens my expression. I lean against the southern window, 
enjoying my liberty; surely in the smallest nook, peace and repose are easily found. 

“My daily saunterings in the garden again become a pleasant habit. There is a gate, 
but it is often closed. Staff in hand, I wander about at leisure; time and again I lift my 
head and scan the distant horizon to behold the clouds issuing lazily forth from the 
mountain crags, and the birds returning home weary of their flight. The dusky shadows 


fall and still I linger beneath the lonesome pine. 


**¢The Three Paths’’ were originated by Chiang Hsii, a renowned military governor of Yen-chou (Shan- 
tung), who in a.p. 6 resigned his exalted position, just as Yiian-ming had resigned his petty one, in the 
quest of a peaceful and unambitious existence. He had his garden-gate choked up with thistles and thorny 
branches, and constructed in his bamboo grove three winding paths through which he roamed in meditation 
for the rest of his life without ever emerging to mingle with the outer world. His example became famous 
throughout the land,and Yiian-ming is only one of many scholars who sought to honor his memory by con- 
structing an identical maze within their bamboo groves. 


[ 142 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


“Home again! I avoid both friends and acquaintances. Since the world and I are 
strangers, why should I seek them? I enjoy the affectionate conversation of my relatives 
and take pleasure in my sorrow-dispelling harp and books. 

“The farmers tell me that spring is here. In the western field there will be work to 
do. Sometimes I order the cart curtained for use; sometimes I row a lonely boat; either 
I thread along the mountain stream to seek the valley or laboriously climb the preci- 
pice by abrupt ascents. The trees are merrily showing signs of life. Springs begin to 
flow in rivulets. All things are ready to begin anew, but I, alas, am approaching the 
end. So be it! We cannot expect to enjoy a long existence in this universe. I shall not 
let such thoughts disturb me. Why ask myself whither I shall go? Wealth and honor 
I do not desire and the Land of the Immortals is equally beyond my reach. 

“Therefore I intend to enjoy these beautiful days. Either I wander forth alone, or 
laying aside my staff, I hoe and cultivate the soil; now and again I ascend the eastern 
mound, whistling as I go, or resting close by some clear stream, I compose my poems. 

“ Assuredly my only course now is to live in accord with nature until my debt is 


paid through the enjoyment of my allotted years without question or doubt.” 


Nothing could be more beautiful than that last passage, nothing more charac- 
teristically Chinese. We owe it to nature to enjoy life! Small wonder that 
such a race could write poetry and paint flowers and landscapes as no one 
else ever did. 

An essay such as this illustrates how even the most Taoistic mentality was 
shot through with Confucian learning, just as no Confucian was without his 
Taoist leanings. Though the predominant tone of this essay is Taoistic, the 
various annotations at the end of each line by later Chinese critics, showing 
the sources which Yiian-ming used for the quotations that are obligatory in 
a scholarly style, refer almost to as many Confucian as Taoist texts. The 


process of amalgamation between the two schools began, indeed, very much 


[ 143 J 


Chinese Painting 


earlier than this, for we find in the work of many a scholar to whom Yiian- 
ming’s lines refer, that same interspersion of phrases and ideas from either 
school that characterizes his own literary productions. 

Li Lung-mien made several famous paintings to illustrate this essay, one 
of which it brought Mr. Freer great happiness to discover shortly before his 
death. As the commentators say that Li’s illustrations of the Kuei-Ch’ti-Lai 
have ‘“‘been treasured and studied in every house and home,’’* either he made 
many copies or one set of the paintings must have had a very wide circulation. 
From an inscription on the painting which Mr. Freer acquired, we learn that 
Lung-mien had made a series of small screens of the same subject; and it is 
also interesting to note that the well-known collector Wang Hsing-chih had 
his copy of the painting, together with Li’s calligraphy of the entire essay, 
transferred to a stone wall in Cho-yii Square. Unfortunately we have no 
means of finding out where Cho-yii Square may be; but let us hope that it 
will some day be discovered with Lung-mien’s pictures and his own version 
of Yiian-ming’s immortal essay still cut upon the face of the wall. 

A biography which T’ao Ytian-ming wrote of a “ Mr. Five- Willow-Trees”’ 
is generally considered an exact description of his own character and life. 
He was “serene, quiet, and a man of few words. He did not aspire to worldly 
honors or riches. Fond as he was of reading, he disliked giving himself the 
trouble of finding out the exact sense of difficult passages; but whenever he 
made a pleasant discovery, he was so transported with joy that he neglected 
his meals. He loved wine, but, being poor, was often without the means of 


obtaining any. Well aware of this fact, his relatives and old friends would 


* The Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u has already been quoted as using the same interest-provoking phrase that ‘*‘ many 
of his paintings have had a wide circulation, and everybody can find an opportunity of examining them per- 
sonally.’’ Mr. Freer’s scroll is evidently a copy from the designs of some T’ang painter and has therefore 
not been reproduced among the illustrations. 


[ 144 7 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


‘often procure wine and invite him to their houses. At every such invitation he 
would invariably drink up all that his host had, with the definite purpose of 
making himself drunk. Having reached that condition, he would take him- 
self off, without giving the least thought [to the propriety of staying a little 
while after the repast’. 

“His residence was just a space confined within walls, empty and dingy, in- 
capable of sheltering him‘even from the wind and sunshine. His attire consisted 
of a short coat of very coarse cloth somewhat tattered, and his food-baskets 
were destitute time and again of anything. Yet he lived in utter complacency. 

“He used to write to amuse himself, and all that he wrote revealed much 
of the man’s nature and ideals. He was completely oblivious of all sense of 
loss or gain and thus lived until his debt to nature was paid.” 

After retiring from his magistracy, Yiian-ming lived in a village called 
Li-li and spent his time reading, writing, and philosophizing, with just enough 
labor in the fields to keep himself and his family alive. His wife, fortunately, 
was in perfect accord with yi figsO PUTOL, ant and high thinking, and 
was quite content to perform the ce MI ATAD) oy any misery. Hence 

the couple could often be seen working away in their field, the husband plow- 
“ing in front while his wife followed him with the hoe. He liked, at times, to 
visit the Buddhist scholars who had banded themselves together as “The 
White Lotus Club’’' in a nearby valley, but Fenollosa is in error when he 
says that T’ao Yiian-ming was » Buddhist and a member of the club. At- 
tracted by the literary ability of the club members, he would often seek their 
society; the head priest, Hui-ylian, tried to persuade him to join them, but 
Yiian-ming never fully approwed of the organization and “ would sometimes 
_ take himself off immediately wivh eyebrows puckered, in spite of Hui-yiian’s 
*Category III, No. 29. | 

; C 145 J 


tent I ety 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


often procure wine and invite him to their houses. At every such invitation he 
would invariably drink up all that his host had, with the definite purpose of 
making himself drunk. Having reached that condition, he would take him- 
self off, without giving the least thought [to the propriety of staying a little 
while after the repast’]. 

*« His residence was just a space confined within walls, empty and dingy, in- 
capable of sheltering him even from the wind and sunshine. His attire consisted 
of a short coat of very coarse cloth somewhat tattered, and his food-baskets 
were destitute time and again of anything. Yet he lived in utter complacency. 

“He used to write to amuse himself, and all that he wrote revealed much 
of the man’s nature and ideals. He was completely oblivious of all sense of 
loss or gain and thus lived until his debt to nature was paid.” 

After retiring from his magistracy, Yiian-ming lived in a village called 
Li-li and spent his time reading, writing, and philosophizing, with just enough 
labor in the fields to keep himself and his family alive. His wife, fortunately, 
was in perfect accord with this ideal of simple living and high thinking, and 
was quite content to perform the severest labor and suffer any misery. Hence 
the couple could often be seen working away in their field, the husband plow- 
ing in front while his wife followed him with the hoe. He liked, at times, to 
visit the Buddhist scholars who had banded themselves together as “The 
White Lotus Club’’* in a nearby valley, but Fenollosa is in error when he 
says that T’ao Yiian-ming was a Buddhist and a member of the club. At- 
tracted by the literary ability of the club members, he would often seek their 
society; the head priest, Hui-yiian, tried to persuade him to join them, but 
Yiian-ming never fully approved of the organization and “‘ would sometimes 
take himself off immediately with eyebrows puckered, in spite of Hui-yiian’s 


"Category III, No. 29. 


[145 J 


Chinese Painting 


attempts to make him stay.” On one occasion T’ao Yiian-ming actually prom- 
ised to join, on condition that they would furnish him with wine whenever he 
came to visit them. To this Hui-yiian, in order to secure his presence, agreed; 
the genial priest even sold poems in order to buy drink for Yiian-ming, but 
on arriving there one day and finding that no wine was forthcoming, T’ao 
straightway went home. 

In Li Lung-mien’s illustrations of Yiian-ming’s “Ideal Ways of Living,’”* 
which were in each case accompanied by one of his poems, Li pictures him 
first in the act of filtering some newly brewed wine through his cap. This 
he did at a neighborly drinking-party in order to remove the dregs from his 
wine, and as soon as he had filtered it, back went the cap on his head, one 
supposes, dregs and all; meaningless as such a picture is to us, it must not be 
forgotten that so Taoistic an indifference to the forms of life seemed daringly 
admirable and unconventional to a race which had been steeped since time 
immemorial in ceremonial and the niceties of behavior. In addition to several 
pictures that show Yiian-ming diverting himself with calligraphy, reading, 
talking, there is one in which he is playing the scholar’s harp. Now it is pop- 
ularly known that he never troubled to learn to play this instrument, but 
when his friends gathered about him, he would have it brought out, and 


while his fingers rested on the strings he would chant: 


“If I but understand the poetry of the harp, 
Why need I bother about the tones of its strings?” 


He was a most prolific writer; but next in fame to his ‘‘ Kuei-Ch’ii-Lai”’ 
and most indicative of the mood of the times is a poetical essay entitled “A 
Narrative Description of the Fountain Among Peach Blossoms.” It is a simple 


* Category II, No. 6. 


[ 146 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


allegory of the yearning of the scholars that lived in this turbulent era for 
a refuge from the sordid political and military struggles with which they 
were surrounded,’ and at the same time it conceals a protest against the op- 
pressions that the rulers of Sung visited upon the conquered Chin kingdom, 
of which Yiian-ming was a subject. The language of the original is superb, 
and the translation renders only its barest statement of fact; but this bare 
statement is itself of moment, as it helps us to realize the insatiable longing for 
a Just and united government that haunted the thoughtful men of this period. 
Many were the later scholars who loved to use this allegory as a subject for 
their poems, especially Wang Wei, who versified the whole of T’ao’s prose 
version, and many the painters who have striven again and again to delineate 


the beckoning atmosphere of ‘“‘The Peach Blossom Fountain.” 


“During the reign of T’ai-yiian’* of the Chin period, a native of Wu-ling, whose voca- 
tion it was to fish for a living, was steering down a stream. On and on he went, losing 
all sense of the distance he had travelled. Then, suddenly, he came upon a grove of 
peach blossoms. On both banks for several hundred paces, he could see no other tree 
amidst the grove; the grass, fresh and lovely, was dotted here and there by the blos- 
soms that were falling from the branches. The fisherman was so astonished that he con- 
tinued in the hope of reaching the end of the grove. At last it came to an end at the 
source of the stream, and there he found a hill. In the hillside was a small opening, in 
which he thought he detected a glimmer of light. He left his boat and entered the cave. 
At first, it proved to be very narrow, barely big enough to allow the passage of a man, 


but, after he had walked several dozen paces, it suddenly opened out to a wide and 


‘It is interesting to note that H. G. Wells in Men Like Gods has made exactly the same sort of response 
to the present period of upheaval. Only his antiseptic Utopia seems less alluring than this simpler one. 
Robert Flint, a Scotch scholar, has said: ‘‘It is in their times of sorest depression that nations usually 
indulge most in dreams of a better future and that their imaginations produce most freely social ideals and 
utopias. ’”’ 


=4,0.1376—-396. 


lat a 


Chinese Painting 


sunny plain. Here the country was flat and extensive, with cottages scattered about; 
and there were also rich farm-lands, lovely ponds, mulberry-trees, bamboos, and the 
like. Paths running in all directions indicated a free communication; the crowing of 
cocks and the barking of dogs’ could be heard all around; the men and women that 
were passing to and fro, or working, were dressed in a style exactly like that of the 
people in the outer world; but the faces of all, old and young alike, shone with happi- 
ness and content. Presently one of them espied the stranger, and in great amazement, 
questioned him whence he had come. The fisherman answered him, and straightway 
the questioner carried the stranger off to his home, bringing out wine, killing a fowl,. 
and preparing him a dinner. In the mean time, the whole village had heard of the 
stranger’s presence, and all the good folk turned out to see him, asking him every sort 
of question. As for themselves, they declared that their forefathers, in escaping from 
the trouble and suffering under the Ch’in rule,” had first come, with their wives, sons, 
and the other people of their district, to this fairyland and had refused to leave; thus 
they had been completely cut off from the outside world. ‘And what is the present 
dynasty?’ asked they of the stranger; they seemed not to have heard of the Hans, let 
alone the Weis’ and the Chins. The fisherman repeated to them in some detail what 
he himself knew; and they all sighed with regret. Then everybody invited the stranger, 
and entertained him with wine and food. After a few days’ stay, he took leave of these 
people, who said to him, ‘You may spare yourself the trouble of informing the outside 
world of this place.’ When he was out of the cave, he found his boat, and steered back 
over the course by which he had come, carefully leaving signs everywhere as he went 
along. In due time he reached his district city, and went to the prefect to make a re- 
port of his experience. The official sent a man with him to locate the place by means of 
the marks that he had left; but, try as they would, they failed to hit upon the proper 


route. Liu Tzu* of Nan-yang, a man of high ideal and character, on hearing the 


’ 


*¢© The crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs’’ is a classical Chinese literary term to indicate a peace- 
ful domesticity. 


*221—207 B.c. *a.D. 220-265. * Also called Liu Lin-chih, a scholar-recluse. 


[ 148 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


report, joyously set out for this land; but, before he could carry out his wish, he fell 
ill and died! Since that, no one else has made any further attempt to discover its where- 


abouts.” 


We need consider only two more of the paintings which Li made of T’ao 
Yiian-ming, the first, which he vaguely entitled ‘‘ The Portrait of a Scholar- 
Recluse,”* and the second, ‘‘T’ao Yiian-ming’s Inebriation and Sleep.’’* A 
description of the former picture explains that “it consists of an ancient 
willow-tree with a scholar-recluse sitting under it. Before him lies a book and 
by his side is a pot filled with wine. The man looks a bit tipsy, is smiling, and 
quietly enjoying himself. This is a representation of T’ao Yiian-ming as he 
must have looked after he returned to his home. None but Lung-mien, who 
has enjoyed a life of nature for a period of thirty years, could do such a por- 
trait.” The other painting quotes T’ao Yiian-ming’s biography as follows: 
“Be his visitor a man of rank or merely a common fellow, he would enter- 
tain him with wine if he had any in the house. Should he be the first to be- 
come intoxicated, he would say to the visitor, ‘I am drunk and want to sleep. 
Leave me, now.’ So simple and free was he.” The latter passage indicates 
what is one of the greatest virtues in Chinese eyes, contempt for worldly 
position; but what the two passages both imply, as do an endless number of 
other stories about T’ao Yiian-ming, is his habitual state of intoxication and 


Li’s condonation of, if not sympathy for, this idiosyncrasy. 


XV 
Tuoucu T’ao Yiian-ming was famous for the fact that he liked, if possible, 
to become intoxicated every day of his life, he is by no means the only great 


* Category II, Nos. 22, 63. 


[ 149 J 


Chinese Painting 


man in the annals of Chinese history with whom the love of wine was a con- 
spicuous interest. The catalogue of Li Lung-mien’s paintings again and again 
shows philosophers, princesses, noblemen, or priests in a tipsy condition;* the 
commentators make admiring mention of the “natural” poses, nor did the 
artist intend to impugn, in these portraits, the dignity of the various men and 
women who were thus depicted. The literature on the merits and beauty of 
intoxication is, moreover, so large and varied, the attitude of the Chinese in 
the matter so different from ours, and of so ancient a growth, that, in order 
to understand these paintings and the cultural phase of which they are the 
result, we must make an effort to appreciate the subject from their own point 
of view. 

Drinking has: played an important part in the life of the Chinese from 
prehistoric times down to the present day. The great sage-emperor Yao 
(2357-2258 B.c. ), to whom all virtues are attributed, is said, by tradition, to 
have consumed daily a thousand cups of wine, while Confucius, who, com- 
paratively, is but a lesser sage, could manage only one hundred cups a day. 
When discussing the question of wine in his writings, Confucius cautiously 
states: ‘‘In taking wine I will have as much as is good for me,” but we know 
that in the Han dynasty, when Confucianism was in control, drinking was in 
abeyance. The great Taoists, however, were all confirmed drinkers, and, dur- 
ing the centuries after the fall of the Han dynasty, they established through 
their lives and their literature an attitude toward drunkenness which influ- 
enced China for almost a thousand years to come. The Buddhists made some 
attempts to check the love of intoxicants among their adherents, but in this 
as in many other matters they finally accepted the traditions of China. 

The very word for “‘intoxication’”’ in Chinese, “tsui,” has a highly poetic 


"Category II, Nos. 22, 63, 65, 69, 71. Category III, Nos. 61, 62. 


Be eled 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


connotation, and suggests anything but the sordidness with which we have 
come to associate it. This indicates on their part an ability always to keep 
their behavior, when under the influence of intoxicants, on a very high level, 
and a long association of intemperance with fine and constructive impulses 
rather than with the general breaking down of necessary inhibitions that in- 
toxication usually causes in occidentals; their objectivity no doubt created for 
them freer conditions that gave more opportunity for spontaneous expression, 
and consequently stimulants did not release in them the many ugly repres- 
sions with which our unnatural lives have afflicted us. 

Whatever the explanation, it must be conceded that no trace of vulgarity 
mars their history of drinking. The praises of wine are infinite in number and 
beautiful in spirit. Perhaps Wang Hsi-chih’s famous piece of calligraphy 
written A.D. 353, while on a picnic at the Epidendrum Pavilion,’ gives one of 
the happiest pictures of the part that drinking played in their social gather- 
ings. On this occasion a party of wise men, scholars, and other worthies of 
the time gathered for the celebration of the ‘Cleansing Ceremony,” an old 
Chou institution which by the fourth century had become a sort of spring 
festival. They sat on either side of a gently flowing river and, putting little 
rimmed cups upon the water, allowed them to float down stream. Whenever 
one of the cups landed, the nearest scholar was permitted to drink its con- 
tents. Each participant also had to write a poem; and, in the introduction to 


his poem, Wang Hsi-chih describes the scene as follows: 


“All the wise men have come, young and old, all have assembled. In this locality we 
have high hills, magnificent ranges, dense forests, and tall bamboos. Around us are 
clear streams and thundering torrents. While we sit about, passing around the wine- 


cups on the meandering course of the flowing water, we feel that alternate drinking 


Category. II, No. 25. 


Beovsga 


Chinese Painting 


and singing affords us sufficient opportunity to give free play to our pleasant thoughts, 
even though we lack musical entertainment of any sort, either strings or pipes. 

Oh, this day! The sky is brilliant, the air cool and clear, the breeze very gentle. 
Looking upward, we behold the magnitude of the universe, and looking down, we see 
the multifarious types and classes of things; wherever we let our attention wander or 
our thoughts fly, there is nothing but gives the greatest enjoyment to eye and ear. 


Truly this is the happiest of times.” 


But the times were not always so happy for these men of the third and 
fourth centuries, and many of them drank to excess in order that they might 
forget, as T’ao Yiian-ming unquestionably wished to, the deplorable condi- 
tion of their country. The note of melancholy, so foreign to the Han dynasty, 
which at this period enters Chinese literature, is coeval with the increase in 
drunkenness; and even during the happier T’ang dynasty one always feels 
in men like the poet Li T’ai-po’ the relationship of nostalgia to intoxication. 
These scholars, especially the earlier ones like “The Seven Wise Men of 
the Bamboo Grove,” or T’ao Yiian-ming, who were driven by external cir- 
cumstances into an extreme Taoism, seem to have arrived at the very end 
of their tether, where existence was but an illusion and action of any sort 
was vain; and he who could forget reality in the haze of intoxication was 
deemed a wise and fortunate person. Such were the early excesses of Taoism 
when it first lost the steadying power of Confucianist influence and thought. 
Just as Confucianism needed the critical, liberty-loving side of Taoism to 
keep it from becoming rigid, so Taoism needed, even more, the sane and 
unselfish qualities of Confucianism to keep it in touch with the realities of 
life. 

The mood of these extreme Taoists is admirably conveyed in a “Eulogy 


‘Category II, No. 28. 


[ 152 J 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


of the Virtues of Wine” written by Liu Ling, another member of “The Seven 
Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove’’; this is worth giving in full because the 
beauty of its style helped to fix a tradition, as did so many of the other liter- 


ary productions of this extraordinary group of men. 


“Here lives a great man and gentleman who views the universe as no more lasting 
than a day, and an infinity of time no longer than the flitting moment; who regards the 
sun and the moon as his door and window, the wilds in the Eight Directions as his 
court-yard and his streets; who leaves no trace wherever he may walk, and possesses 
no house to shelter him. He uses the heavens above for his canopy and the earth beneath 
him for.his couch. He goes wherever fancy prompts, and whether he stops or stirs about 
he has in hand his cup and wine-pot; his whole attention is on wine; he bothers him- 
self about no other thing. 

“Then a nobleman’s son and a grave soldier, hearing about his ways, began a debate 
on the pros and cons of his behavior. They became excited; they waxed wroth. An array 
of the proprieties was marshalled before him; a battery of ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ assailed 
him. 

“And in the mean time the great gentleman, pot in hand and cup to lip, has been 
drinking away and lolling among the dregs and residues. Without thought or sorrow, 
supremely happy, he slowly becomes intoxicated, and suddenly is sober once more. The 
roar of thunder does not reach him even when he listens attentively; the highest moun- 
tain makes no impression even though he stares hard. His body feels neither heat nor 
cold, nor is his mind disturbed by a wish or an emotion. He looks down upon the life 
and bustle of the myriad objects all around him; they are to him as weeds floating upon 
the surface of the water, and the two worthies standing near have as much relationship 


to him as the worms in the mulberry-trees have to the wasps.” 
In the seventh century an equally celebrated continuation was written to this 


panegyric, entitled “A Description of the Land of the Intoxicated,” literally 


of ‘ Drunk-land,” by another scholar-recluse named Wang Chi. He was a 


Pats 3 oe 


Chinese Painting 


brother of the celebrated Wang T’ung,’ the greatest philosopher of his time, 
who was revered by his contemporaries as second only to Confucius him- 
self; many of the brilliant men who helped to establish the T’ang dynasty 
were either Wang T’ung’s pupils or his personal friends. Chi, though not with- 
out literary ability and a reputation for learning, had not so much as a trace of 
his brother’s exalted traits of character. He was passionately fond of drink- 
ing, had no scruples in obtaining official positions in order that he might con- 
tinue to supply himself with wine, compiled books on wine and its inventors, 
and even went so far as to build a temple to one of these, Tu K’ang, whom 


he worshipped as his master. His ‘‘ Tsui-Hsiang Chi” reads as follows: 


“The Land of Drunkenness is no one knows how many thousand li distant from the Mid- 
dle Empire. It is a vast country, limitless, and devoid of elevations or depressions. Its climate 
is uniformly temperate; no darkness or dawn; no cold or heat. The customs of the country 
are in the main quite simple. It has no cities, towns, or villages. The inhabitants are ex- 
ceedingly refined, free from likes or dislikes, from feelings of joy or anger. They [live | by 
inhaling the air and drinking the dew, and do not eat cereals. ‘They sleep in the most con- 
tented manner; they walk about very leisurely; they mix freely with the birds, animals, 
fishes, and turtles; the use of boats, carts, and all mechanical appliances is unknown. 
“Once Huang-ti [2704-2592 .c.] made a trip to its capital city. On his return [to 
his own empire] he was literally distracted, and left this world, in the belief that even 
the political institution of rope-knotting’ indicated a state of things very much inferior. 
The Emperors Yao [2357-2258 z.c.] and Shun [2258-2206 3.c.| made it a rule to 
be supplied [daily] with one thousand cups and one hundred pots of wine, respec- 


tively; and they tried, with the assistance of the immortal being Ku-yi,’ to go through 


‘Lived c. a.p. 549-618. 


* The introduction of rope-knotting as an aid to human memory in recording transactions was, in the eyes 
of the Taoists, man’s first descent from the condition of absolute trust, simplicity, and inactivity. 


*Category III, No. 24. 


[ 154 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


this country, but they probably reached only its frontiers; yet, throughout their reigns, 
they enjoyed an uninterrupted peace. 

“Vii [2205-2198 n.c.| and T’ang [1766-1754 z.c.| first enacted laws and created 
a multiplicity of ceremonial and music, with the result that, for the period of several 
dozens of rulers reigning after them in direct succession, the communication with this 
Land of Drunkenness was cut off. Their officers, Hsi and Ho,’ hoping to reach this land, 
threw aside their calendar-making and fled; but they lost their way and died on the road, 
and consequently the world became unsettled. Then their last great-great-grandsons 
Chieh [1818-1766 nic. | and Chou [1154-1122 z.c.], in a passion, ascended the Mound 
of [liquor | Residues which had a series of ascending steps amounting to thousands of 
feet and scanned southward; but they did not succeed in catching a single glimpse 
of this country. 

“When King Wu [1134-1116 z.c.] had attained his ambition? in the world, he com- 
manded his brother Kung-tan to institute the official rank of Wine-Man, whose duty 
it was to make and supply the Five Mixtures of wine; and he also aggrandized his 
dominion by the addition of lands to the extent of seven thousand li, just getting in touch 
with this country; therefore he was able to lay aside the penal contrivances as useless 
for forty years. Further down, in the period when the Chou Emperors Li [878-842 s.c. | 
and Yu [781-771 s.c.], the Ch’ins, and the Hans ruled, the Middle Empire was in 
a state of chaos, and the intercourse with this country was completely stopped, except 
that some of their officers and subjects that loved the ‘Tao’ betook themselves there 
secretly, once in a while. About a dozen or so of men such as Yiian Ssii-tsung,*? T’ao 
Yiian-ming, and the like had travelled in this country, and lived out their lives there 


‘The reference to Hsi and Ho is taken from the Sha King (Book of Chronicles, Chap. 4). It is here re- 
corded that in the ninth moon of the year 2159 B.c., an eclipse of the sun took place which Hsi and Ho, 
as the national astronomers and calendar-makers, should have announced to the people, but they failed to 
do so because they had both been drinking heavily and neglected their duties. 


*i.e., had established an empire, in 1122 B.c. 


* Yiian Chi was a member of ‘‘The Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove’’; at one time the Emperor 
Weén-ti tried to marry his son to Yiian’s daughter, but Yiian made himself drunk for sixty days in order 
that the emperor should not find an opportunity of bringing the proposal to his attention. 


[Esso 


Chinese Painting 


without returning; and, when they died, they were buried in its earth. The people of 
the Middle Empire regarded them as Immortals of the Cup. 

“Oh! considering the general state of things in this Land of Drunkenness, could it 
be the identical ancient Kingdom of Hua-hsii-shih?* Else, how could its civilization 
reach such a simple and tranquil stage as this? However, as I now intend to take a trip 


there myself, I write this description.” 


This is really a history of China’s famous drinkers, and it is significant that 
all of the strong Confucian periods of rule are designated as “‘out of touch 
with Drunk-land.”’ 

During the T’ang dynasty the strong central government, the feeling of 
unity, and the reéstablishment of such Confucian systems as the Academy, 
the civil service examinations, the university, and so on, gave form to the 
political structure and inspired men once more with the desire to become 
responsible parts of the social machinery. Life again became an active, pur- 
poseful affair; the scholars were less isolated, the poets less scornful of the 
attractions of court life, and the emperors themselves were excellent critics, 
painters, and poets who knew how to treat the delicate temperaments of their 
gifted subjects. The influence of an untrammelled Taoism was still dominant 
in some characters, notably in that of Li T’ai-po,’ who was one of “‘The 
Eight Immortals of the Cup,” and together with Tu Fu, the greatest of T’ang 
poets. ‘The world is but a dream,” he wrote. “ Why should we then weary 
our lives with toil? All day long I drink myself into unconsciousness and 
sleep away helplessly upon my doorstep.’’ Lung-mien has done a picture of 
him “Upon a Misty River in Wind and Moonlight,” because legend says 


* The Kingdom of Hua-hsii-shih, a name immortalized by the philosopher Lieh-tzti, was another one of the 
Utopias which the Taoists loved to describe. Of this type of literature Wang Chi’s essay as well as ‘‘ The 
Peach Blossom Fountain’’ are typical examples. 


*Lived a.p. 705-762. See Category II, No. 28. 


Perso) 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


that Li Po was drowned upon such a night when, in a state of intoxication, 
he reached out from his boat to grasp the moon’s reflection in the water. 
His equally celebrated contemporary, Tu Fu, however, was quite another 
type of character, that shows the progress of Confucian ideals and points 
more definitely toward the men who came after him. He, like Li and his 
friends, was in lifelong government service; and the T’ang historian says: 
“His writings reveal his constant thoughts of the emperor, and people have 
ever admired him for his loyalty. Though he lived in a time of trouble, he 
managed to keep his character unsullied.” It was Tu Fu who, in one of his 
poems, half contemptuously, half playfully, gave to his drink-loving contem- 
poraries the title of ‘The Eight Immortals of the Cup.”” He was one of Lung- 
mien’s favorite writers, on whose style of composition Li is supposed to have 
based his own work. Even more frequently we find in the catalogue a name 
that has already been mentioned as a model of Confucianism, that of Han Yii,’ 
greatest of T’ang essayists, according to Chinese criticism. Here was indeed 
one of the noblest of the many fine characters of the T’ang dynasty, whom 
we find praised in the annals of history not only as a literary man but as a 
courageous statesman who did not hesitate to oppose the emperor himself 
if the country’s welfare demanded it. His critique of Buddhism, written as a 
memorial to the Emperor Hsien-tsung,’ has ever been considered one of 
the finest of Chinese state papers, and his commentaries upon the Confucian 
classics became the basis of a new school of criticism that was not superseded 


until the time of the philospher Chu Hsi.’ 


‘Lived a.p. 712-770. See page 49. 

* Lived a.p. 768-824. See pages 72, 73. Also Category II, No. 52. Category III, No. 65. 
* Category III, No. 65. 

* Lived a.p. 1130-1200. 


Bek sry 


Chinese Painting 


XVI 
Sucu was the development that paved the way and made possible the re- 
markably talented and many-sided group of men by whom Lung-mien was 
surrounded and of whom, together with the no less remarkable Su Tung-p’o, 
he was the chief ornament. Through the influence of Confucian standards, 
life had broadened and become more poised since the Taoist days of the har- 
assed and oppressed Chin dynasty. The Sung Confucianists had acquired too 
many varied and vital interests to wish to drink away their lives. We still 
find Li Lung-mien doing a portrait of the dignified Su Tung-p’o “ when he 
is tipsy ’’;* but no mention is made, either in the biographies of Li Lung-mien 
or of his contemporaries, of any tendencies toward drunkenness. They en- 
joyed their wine, as they picnicked ‘on some rock beside flowing water”; 
but the lives of these men were too active both politically and artistically, 
their characters too stalwart, to permit of much time or inclination for exces- 
sive indulgence in wine. Yet they loved the glorious old topers of antiquity, 
loved their independence, their ability as writers, and the spirit of power- 
ful individualism which they had left as a vitalizing spark to their more staid 
and sober descendants. In the Sung dynasty men had learned to live in the 
market-place and yet maintain the integrity of their high motives; but if Su 
Tung-p’o, Su Ché, Huang Shan-ku, and Li Lung-mien were able to give to 
the world such varied and glorious talents, it was because the ideals of T’ao 
Yiian-ming and his predecessors, “The Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo 
Grove,” were still real to them ; it was because they were intelligent enough to 
see in their responsible, hard-drinking, lovable Wang Chi a gift and a vision 
that supplemented admirably the stern morality of his Confucian brother 
Wang T’ung. Their austere conception of life, their passion for service, was 


"Category II, No. 65. 


pus) 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


emotionalized, softened, broadened, and made deeply human by the thought 
that their interests, like those of their Taoist ancestors, must develop freely, 
if each was to bring to his countrymen his fullest possibilities. But they had 
also learned that individualism and inaction can be driven so far that they lead 
to destruction; and this knowledge, which brought them back once more into 
a well-balanced, socialized, productive, and happy frame of mind, they owed 
to the resurgence of Confucianism. 

Thus the great pieces of literature which influenced the men of T’ang 
and Sung, the great political movements, the philosophies most immediately 
linked with their behavior, were always those of Laotziti and Confucius. These 
were so intermingled that, even in a Taoism as fervent as that of T’ao Yiian- 
ming, there was a strong Confucian bent which shows itself in the multitude 
of classic quotations in his text, while in a staunch Confucian like Han Yu, 
we find irresistible Taoist leanings, as for example, in the essay that accom- 
panies Li’s illustrations for ‘‘ Coupling Lines on a Stone Tripod.””* No scholar’s 
mentality was absolutely free from either mode of thought, and it must ever be 
borne in mind that the use of the terms Taoist and Confucian never denotes 
more than a preponderating tendency. 

In such a development, what was the role of Buddhism? Let us consider, 
to make this clear, another of the T’ang poets and painters whom Lung-mien 
ardently admired, whose work he often copied, whose style obviously influ- 
enced his own, the ineffable Wang Wei,’ who helped to make unforgettable 
that most brilliant and beautiful of periods, the reign of the T’ang Emperor 
Ming-huang. He was a government official until carried off, together with 
the emperor and his court, by the victorious Tartar chieftain, An Lu-shan, in 
755; and when,two years later, order had been restored, Wang Wei returned 


* Category II, No. 52. *Lived a.p. 688-759. 


[ 159 J 


Chinese Painting 


to his beloved homestead in the Sung Hills, where he finished his days in the 
enjoyment of the superb scenery. He was a devout Buddhist and “lived in 
strict conformity with its practices, eating no meat and avoiding clothing of 
brilliantly colored materials.’’ Yet there is no trace of his Buddhism in the 
picture that we get of him through the eyes of Li Lung-mien. His Bud- 
dhism did not, in the unconscious sifting of his pupil’s mind, come through. 
He was known in his day asa painter of Buddhist subjects, but it is only as a 
lover and interpreter of landscape that he figures in the catalogue.’ The im- 
portance of his Buddhism is, in the spontaneous selection of his disciple, com- 
pletely obliterated by his Taoist love of cloud forms, his affection for the Sung 
Hills, and for the mountain cottage of which he made so beautiful a painting 
that Li Lung-mien was only one of many later artists who attempted to copy 
it. And surely, after tracing the intimacy not only of Taoism but of every phase 
of Chinese life with nature, it is no longer necessary to refute the ludicrous 
idea that Buddhism brought the love of landscape to China. In this respect 
Wang Wei was no different from his ultra Confucian or Taoist contempora- 
ries, no different from his spiritual ancestors, T’ao Yiian-ming, or Wang Hsi- 
chih and his associates, Hsti Hsiin® and Hsieh An,’ from “The Seven Wise 
Men of the Bamboo Grove,” or even the more ancient, more Confucian ‘‘ Old 
Men of the Shang Mountains.’’* 

With the exception of superficial references to pagodas or monasteries and 
an occasional line in which he states that “‘in middle age he loved the Bud- 
dhist teachings,” we see in Wang Wei’s poetry and prose the same elimina- 


tion of Buddhist philosophy that characterizes his pictorial art. Do we find 


"Category IT, Nos. 16, 17, 18. Category V, No. 12. 
* Category II, No. 50. 
* Category II, Nos. 49, 57. 


[ 160 | 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


ecstatic hymns to Kuan-yin or Buddha? Not at all. Instead we hear him sing- 


ing as any Taoist would:* 


“Whene’er I wish to roam in solitude 

With joys that I alone can know, 

I wander till I reach the water’s edge, 

And sinking down, I contemplate the cloud forms.” 
His well-known essay on “The Secrets of Landscape Painting,” in which, 
as an ardent Buddhist, he would no doubt have been only too glad to acknow- 
ledge any contributions which his religious faith had made to his art, there 
is no single line that would indicate even the existence of such a religion. On 
the contrary, it harks back to the ancient Chinese rules of technique that domi- 
nated this good Buddhist, as they did all those who preceded or came after 
him. 

What is the reason for this nullification as an outward influence of a creed 
that in the T’ang dynasty had followers even among the /iteratz? It is due to 
the powerful literary and philosophical tradition of which we have just traced 
the reflection in the catalogue of Lung-mien, which from earliest childhood 
held every Chinese student firmly in its grasp. The painters were primarily 
scholars, and Wang Wei, like his fellow-artists, had spent his whole youth 
acquiring his mode of thought and his style from Confucius, Mencius, Chuang- 
tzu, and the Chin Taoists, especially T’ao Yiian-ming; his behavior had been 
moulded by Confucian regulations, his official duties bound him closely to a 
Confucian government. His intellectual development was dominated by pre- 
cisely the same ancient factors as was that of his non-Buddhistic contempo- 
raries, Li T’ai-po, Tu Fu, and Han Yii; and to the traditional content of their 
thinking was added an equally powerful technical tradition, whether that tech- 


* Category II, No. 17. 


e161 3 


Chinese Painting 


nique be one of poetizing, painting, or any other form of expression. Not until 
the Sung dynasty was any Chinese literature written in the style of the Bud- 
dhist texts; and when we realize how closely the arts and letters were bound 
up with daily life, how firmly evolutional the whole process was, this un- 
assailable, impermeable quality of the Chinese cultural traditions is easily 
understood. 

The interaction of these traditions in Chinese pictorial art may be with ac- 
curacy compared to the structure of a piece of woven material. Confucianism 
is the woof which acts as basis and framework of the whole. Without the 
strong organization of the Confucian state and its creation of comparatively 
peaceful conditions that made production possible; without the deliberate en- 
couragement of art carried on by the emperors, or the careful preservation 
of art products both ancient and modern in imperial galleries and academies; 
above all things, without the Confucian insistence upon continuity of subjects 
and techniques, Chinese art could scarcely have existed at all, would certainly 
never have developed so broadly or so magnificently, and would inevitably 
have perished in the numerous destructive conflicts, or by the natural deteri- 
oration of time and accident. Through this Confucian woof runs in and out 
the warp of Taoism, lending an endless variety of pattern and color, a rich- 
ness of imagination, of gayety and humor, in short, much of what is fascinat- 
ing, alluring, charming in this most beautiful of cultural fabrics. Through their 
constant reiteration of nature’s importance, through their frequent reinspira- 
tion by unbroken contact with the peace and splendor of nature’s domain, 
through their preservation of the scholar’s ancient independence of thought, 
they kept their art a living one, expressive of themselves, developing as they 
developed, glorious and free as long as they were, becoming a mechanical 


reiteration only when the flaming inspiration of their Taoist fathers had been 


[162.4 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


quenched. Then the pattern-giving warp wore thin and the bare woof stood 
out lifeless and unadorned. 

In the most beautiful moments of this tapestry were noticeable some strands 
of precisely the same weave but of different hue that lent a note of interesting 
novelty, exotic in quality and attractive through that very strangeness; that 
was the influence of Buddhism. These strands contributed delightfully to the 
variety of the fabric. Were they removed, a considerable gap would make it- 
self felt; but to the fundamental structure they added no necessary element, 
and the pattern even without them would have been of transcendent beauty. 

This fusing of all the cultures is what singularly characterizes the Sung 
dynasty. The more naive T’ang dynasty still had excluding faiths, and could 
at times be passionately roused to the defence or attack, with arms or with 
equally wounding memorials, of one or the other form of belief. The Sung 
dynasty was less ardent and more generous, less emotional but more intelli- 
gent. It sought to reconcile every mode of human thought, even those that 
had, not so long ago, seemed complete contradictions. It was one of those pin- 
nacles of human culture when men gather within themselves all the products 
of the past as so many different expressions of a single beautifully varied 
mentality. 

It is precisely this rich pragmatic eclecticism that could never have been 
evolved without Confucianism as its basis. Because of its firmly poised ob- 
jectivity, Confucianism made such breadth of mind and imagination possible, 
a fact that will be all the more readily conceded, if we contrast with this atti- 
tude the passionate exclusiveness of such a religion as Buddhism. Confucian- 
ism may indeed be criticized as too prone to become eclectic, but the final 
judgment of this proclivity can rest only upon the character of the things that 


it achieved. The art of Li Lung-mien, embracing as it does the complete ex- 


Bate 


Chinese Painting 


pression of this tendency, may therefore be considered a fair test of the worth 
of that whole eclectic movement which in the Sung dynasty marked the native 
recovery from the Buddhist invasion. 

In Li Lung-mien we have that highest form of impersonal greatness which 
gathers within itself all the developmental forces of the past and, by its ob- 
jective losing of self in them, gives to the world a new-found, greater self 
that becomes in its all-embracing nature one of the culminating points of the 
evolutional process. Beyond it, moreover, progress for the time being cannot 
go; and when such natures pass away, their work is shattered and carried on 
by a multitude of lesser beings whose entire contribution cannot equal that 
temporary summing up of all that was true and strong and beautiful in the 


past. 


XVII 

Arter the year 1090 we find very few dated paintings in the catalogue; 
and, though the biographies intimate that Li Lung-mien was not affected with 
rheumatism until he retired in 1100, I suspect that during these last ten years 
of his official life his productivity was much hampered by the disease of which 
he died. Mi Fei tells us that at one time Li Lung-mien was unable for three 
years to lift his brush. He dates this time merely by stating that it was then 
that he himself began to paint, and as Mi Fei surely painted before 1100 (he 
died in 1107), poor Li had probably been plagued earlier in life by his rheu- 
matic afflictions. | 

At no time during his official career did he fill positions of great importance. 
At first he was assistant secretary in the district of Nan-k’ang’ and in that of 
Ch’ang-yiian,’ then chief secretary in the sub-prefecture of Sst-chow, Anhui. 


* Nan-an, Kiangsi. *Ta-ming, Chihli. 


[ 164 7 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


As he had a reputation by that time as a scholar, Lu T’ien recommended him 
for the position of Literary Secretary in one of the departments of the cabi- 
net. Subsequently he became Inspector of the Censorate and was given the 
title of Ch’ao-Féng-Lang, a purely honorary position of the Second Class, 
Sixth Grade. As these later appointments are of a formal character, carrying 
with them no heavy responsibilities, they were probably given to Lung-mien 
as tributes to his learning and artistic genius, a not uncommon way in the 
T’ang and Sung dynasties of providing scholars with a dignified competency 
that would leave the recipient free to pursue his studies or his art. 

The Topographical Gazetteer’ informs us that Li Kung-lin’s Reading Hall 
in the Lung-mien Hills was situated near the village “Spring and Autumn,” 
eighty li south of Shu-ch’éng city, and that next to this studio was a pond 
called the “ Inkstone- Washing Pond” because Kung-lin had the habit of clean- 
ing his inkstone there. “The water is black even to-day,”’ we are assured. 
His tomb, which is mentioned in the same source, was five li south of Shu- 
ch’éng. 

After his retirement “he gave himself up to the pursuit of happiness among’ 
the Lung-mien Hills’; but the Pi-shu Lu-hua’ gives an account of his last 
years which contains a note of sadness, indicating that appreciation came to 
Lung-mien, as to many another great man, when it was too late for him to 
enjoy it. “In later life he painted successive scenes from the eighty chapters 
of the Hua-Yén Sutra. Li Ch’ung-yiian [his cousin ] wrote the text, the work 
being of very high excellence in every way. He did not have time to finish 
it, for the rheumatism in his limbs made it impossible to continue. He often 
sighed deeply over this. When he could paint no more, he had to pay gen- 
erously in gold and silk to get his own paintings from other people’s collec- 


PBE. ALi, p. 7. 'Chapoiss pi28s 


fae Goat 


Chinese Painting 


tions in order to store them up himself. This shows how highly he valued 
them. In the period of Hsiian-ho’ his paintings were considered equal in rank 
to those of Wu Tao-tzi. There were many who sought to obtain high office 
with one or two of his sheets of painting. Before he was affected by his ill- 
ness, there were only a few famous scholars who appreciated him, and all 
he got for his work at that time was a dozen sheets of good poetry.” 

However, in an essay that he himself wrote and illustrated, Li Lung-mien 
has left us a picture of his old age which robs those last rheumatic years 
of all their pain. It has, to be sure, no more the life-loving, convivial, hu- 
morous quality which we associate with the happy, early days spent at the 
capital in the company of Su Shih and Huang Shan-ku, but it reveals the 
enduring quality of the pleasures that scholarship and a love of nature can 
give. “ Moral Lessons at the Farmstead in the Lung-mien Hills,’’’ it is called, 
for he painted it to point out to his children or grandchildren the way of true 
virtue. One inscription asserts that the seven children whom he mentions were 
his six sons and his only daughter, Mae; but some of his contemporaries 
repeatedly declare that he had but one child, a son named Shé, and others 
speak authoritatively of a son-in-law. Later critics assert that, though the por- 
trait of the old man is certainly that of Li himself, the picture is merely an 
allegory which contributes nothing to our knowledge of his personal rela- 
tionships. 

In the first section of the essay Li portrays himself in a state of melan- 
cholia, and then describes how the children, one after another, attempt to 
divert him. The first, named Yi, offers him some wine, saying that “the pure 
wine of I-chéng’ is famed far and wide for its excellence; its color is like the 
dew; its taste like honey-water; held in a pot of gold and drunk out of a cup 


*a.D. 1119-1125. * Category II, No. 48. * Hupeh. 


es Roses 


Ny avee! 


a ae " ‘ped hd 
Ch Se IE pei tay, 


tions in order to store thes up tilieulk This shows how highly he va 
them. In the period of Hsiian-ho’ his paintings were considered equal in ra 
to those of Wu Tao-tzii. There were many who sought to anole 
with one or two of his sheets of painting. Before he was affected by hi 
ness, there were only a few famous scholars who appreciated a 
he got for his work at that time was a dozen sheets of good pc 
However, in an essay that he himself wrote and illustrated, Li 
_ has left us a picture of his old age which robs those last 
_ of all their pain. It has, to be sure, no more the life-loving, ¢ 
morous quality which we associate with the happy, early day 
capital in the company of Su Shih and Huang Shan-ku, ba itr 
enduring quality of the pleasures that scholarship and a love ol 
give. “ Moral Lessons at the Farmstead in the Lung-mien il 
for he painted it to point out to his children or grandchildren th 
virtue. One inscriptishwd se senatwas Te vaHeHOuen whom hem | 
his six sons-and his only GK SLAM). ; but some of nae CO er 
repeatedly declare that he had but one child, a son named § 


: ow) 
on ana 


- 
speak authoritatively of a son-in-law. Later critics assert that, t 


. trait of the old man is certainly that of Li himself, the sie 
allegory which contributes ites: to our knowledge oF his p 
tionships. Fl e 

In the first section of the essay Li portrays himself in a s 
cholia, and then describes how the children, one after anoth , zi 


a 9. thei a dy a ras ek 


' > il 


divert him. The first, named: Yi, offers him some wine, saying ti 
wine of I-chéng* is famed far and wide for its excellence; solr 
dew; its taste like honey-water; held in a pot of gold and ain i t< 
‘am TI19-1125, * Category II, No. 48. * Hupeh. 


[ 166 ] 


ae | 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


of white jade, it passes between the lips, diffusing its pungency and fragrance.” 
The old man fears its consequences and impatiently waves it away. 

In the second section a young girl, Mae, comes forward with a salver, 
saying: “‘ This beautiful peony is from the banks of the River Lo. It secretes 
its beauty in the spring, and blooms as summer sets in. So exquisitely pink 
and white is it that the light on the clouds at sunset is outdone in beauty. At 
dawn, when the dew still glittered, I plucked the flower with my slender fin- 
gers and placed it in this golden salver; it is so brilliant in color and so sweet 
that the peach and plum flowers are put out of conceit with their beauty, and 
even the water-lilies feel their hearts fail within them and begin to fade. This 
is surely one of the most beautiful things in the world. Is it enough to make 
you break into a smile?’’ The old man replies that ‘‘the entanglements in 
which beauty involves us are too knotty ever to be undone.” 

Then Ching, the second boy, offers Li some wonderful fish to eat that had 
been brought by a stranger from a river in the west. ‘‘ They are so delicate 
and tender that they can be cut into strips as fine as silken threads, and when 
prepared with sweet orange juice and best vinegar, will render all other deli- 
cacies superfluous.” Rich cookery, however, is summarily dismissed as poison 
for the constitution. 

Fang, tea-cup in hand, now comes forward, saying that tea-drinking puri- 
fies the thoughts: “In this world there are some leaves of heaven’s gift which 
grow in the Min province.’ They are boxed as a tribute to the emperor and 
are more precious than the ‘Upper Spring’ wine. When they first reach the 
emperor, he makes a beverage of them and then he has them distributed 
among: the Six Palaces. The packages that remain he bestows upon his min- 
isters and subjects. Among the different specimens are the ‘Flying Dragon’ 


*Fukien. 


Psieyed 


Chinese Painting 


and the ‘ Mi-yiin Treasure.’ Though the cakes in which the leaves are done 
up are not bigger than an inch, each one would fetch a hundred ounces of 
silver. For brewing, the cake is crushed with a golden hammer and ground 
in a jade mortar with a jade pestle; then the powder is put into a cup from 
Chien-an’ and boiled with spring water from the hills of Hui. If Liu Ling could 
taste this beverage he would cancel his ‘Ode to the Virtue of Wine,’ and should 
the Emperor Wu-ti of Han sip it, he would cast away his ‘ Receptacle for the 


a 33 


Dew.’”’ In spite of this tempting description, tea is dismissed as trivial. 

In the fifth section Ch’i praises chess as a diversion. He declares: ‘‘’The 
strategy and tactics used in this game are not surpassed by those of the great 
commanders Yi and Li, and the prowess with which attacks are warded off or 
battles fought would put to shame the greatest ancient warriors Pén and Yi. 
When the struggle is at its height, the contestants become so excited and 
absorbed that a violent storm with a landslide would be noiseless to them, 
and even a hurricane beating up the seas would not reach their ears.” The 
old man only replies: ‘‘ When I was young, I played such games, but in my 
advanced age,I will have no more of it.” 

Liang, the next boy, has no greater success when he suggests the excite- 
ment of dice-playing. The old man complains of fatigue. 

Then the youngest boy, Yii, turns to the other children and says that their 
father can be cheered only by a talk on poetical topics or by the happiness 
of quiet. He addresses them, giving, of course, Li Lung-mien’s own ideas of 


real happiness and a beautiful picture of his home and his mode of life: 


“To the south there are bamboos which our father has planted; under the bamboo is 
the cottage in which he has lived; the cottage contains a collection of books that he 
has made; moreover, it is provided with bright windows and immaculate desks where 
*Kiangsi. 


[ 168 ] 


The Intellectual Life of Li Lung-Mien 


he has been standing or sitting morning and night. The principles of the Six Classics 
have intoxicated him sufhciently without the need of the product of yeast which only 
dulls the head; the flowers of thought from different philosophers are beautiful enough 
to gladden his eyes without the demoralizing effect of the beauty of plants; their vir- 
tuous precepts have stilled his hunger without the unpleasant odors which food gives 
out; to drink in their words and passages was more than enough to purify his thoughts 
without leaving the bitter taste of tea; then exploring the history of the “Spring and Au- 
tumn’ period ['745-404.8.c. |, scanning the ‘Contending States’ period [403-222 s.c. |, 
studying and discussing the period of Ch’in [221-207 B.c.] and Han [a.p. 202-220 | 
down to the times of Sui | a.p. 581-618] and T’ang [..p. 618-907], he has discovered 
all the causes of peace and confusion, and the explanations for the rise and fall of dy- 
nasties. Which is more profitable, this or a game of chess? By amassing ten thousand 
volumes in his mind and by collecting thousands of years beneath his eyes, he has found 
that such knowledge is the door through which all great men must pass. Which is more 


enriching, this or a game of dice?” 


Thus does Li Lung-mien himself describe for us the deeply Confucian side of 
his character. Even beauty, to which his whole life would seem to have been 
devoted, is rejected, according to the classic Chinese maxim that the too great 
love of beauty leads to loss of ambition. With an austerity that is worthy of 
the ancient sages, he rejects all bodily indulgences, and only the thought of 
his books and the review of China’s mighty past can brighten the old man’s 
features. “Finding his trouble dispelled,” the essay concludes, “he gladly 
follows Yii’s suggestion that they shall go for a walk.” The final picture 
shows the old man sauntering through a bamboo grove with all his children 
grouped about him in true patriarchal fashion. 


As a last glimpse of Li Lung-mien, it is a very happy one. 


[ 169 ] 


THE ART OF LI LUNG-MIEN 


I 

HE history of pictorial art in China is a reflection of the history of its 

philosophic systems; and having determined, to some extent, from a 

perusal of his subjects, the nature and scope of Li Lung-mien’s in- 
terests, it is first necessary to distinguish the various types of plastic produc- 
tion that each of these different influences would imply. If we realize clearly 
how the aesthetics of the Chinese grew naturally out of their thinking, and 
what form of expression their various modes of thinking took, it can more 
readily be decided to what extent Li Lung-mien was dominated by that past 
which he so venerated, and to what extent he fashioned his heritage to suit 
the peculiar needs of his own era and his own individuality. 

A people who loved the world as did the Chinese, whose whole living and 
thinking were conditioned by their understanding of natural phenomena, were 
bound to go in search of the meaning of form and become great artists. Since 
the Confucianists had expended their comprehension of the universe upon the 
organization of an analogous social structure, they felt its rhythm through this 
human medium and became figure painters, whereas the Taoists remained 
faithful to the source of their inspiration, and devoted themselves to the de- 
piction of nature itself. 

The firm and majestic quality of the Confucian figure paintings is due to 
their fine comprehension of the solemnity and the profound necessity of beau- 
tifully organized human relationships. They felt with a piercing poignancy the 
pathetic dependence, the stranded note, of the individual as such; and both 
their technique and composition were the outcome of a determination, first to 
see the individual as nobly as they could by endowing him with the accoutre- 


ments of his social status, then to raise him to his real importance and worth 


Bae feb 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 
by emphasizing his function in the life of the group. If the early Chinese fig- 


ure paintings show us humanity in its most cultured, its most distinguished 
aspect, it is because these things were made by a people whose conception of 
man’s role in the universe has never been equalled either in its simplicity or 
its assurance; it had a dignity that was devoid of arrogance, humility that 
never became servile, and that beautiful calm which is possible only for those 
who are untroubled by the thought of destiny. Noble the race that achieved 
such distinction for existence, infinitely noble the art that helps us to sense, 
even to-day, how proudly the structure of their life was treasured and re- 
corded. The exquisite disciplinary fixedness of their going and coming can 
there still be measured in the equally controlled adjustments of form and 
space; for the orderly arrangement of their compositions is the direct out- 
come of the orderly arrangement of their daily lives. The even tenor of their 
way was translated into the no less even tenor of their line. 

Necessarily there was conveyed by pictures of so racial an origin, no hint 
of individual fancy. If they contained the sublime beauty and dignity which 
_ these carefully rehearsed movements would eventually acquire, they also had 
a uniformity that the dictated routine of such an existence would make it 
impossible to escape. The very subject-matter was bound to be, not that of 
individual interest, but that of general concern: the glory of the emperor, 
the appurtenances of court life, celebrated moments of history, the portraits 
of loyal and distinguished citizens, ceremonious behavior alike of great and 
small toward one another, anything, indeed, that would enhance and serve 
the institutions of the state and the exemplary deeds of its members. 

In addition, the writings of the sages were ever a powerful stimulus. The 
didactic and ethical note, singularly the characteristic of those who aim chiefly 


at benevolence and wisdom, was present from the earliest moment; but at 


Ke tpiad 


Chinese Painting 


no period in the long development does the Confucian artist show evidences 
of leaden-handed intention. He was always too intrinsically the seeker of 
beauty to abuse in this way the function of the artist. But he was so condi- 
tioned, and generations before him had been so conditioned, that his seeking 
for tangible loveliness was guided by what had ever seemed to him most 
sacred, the love for ancient wisdom and the inculcation of that wisdom in his 
posterity. Without the slightest prostitution of his plasticity, he could be ethi- 
cal, he could illustrate the moral Confucian texts, because these were not ab- 
stract thoughts or the mere addenda of existence, but the essence of his action, 


and the very terms upon which he held life to be dear. 


II 
Iw order to appreciate the first bent of the Confucian aesthetic sense and 
how inextricably it was entwined with the organization and conduct of the 
state, let us turn to a section of the essay on “‘ The Development of Chinese 


Fine Art” by Liu Shih-p’ei* in the Kuo-ts’ui Hstieh-pao for 1907. 


“With the rise of the Chous [1122 s.c.] simplicity gave way to ornamentation, and 
the fine arts were cultivated not alone to serve a useful purpose. And what then were 
the fine arts? They included etiquette and all the rules of ceremony. Tzii-t’ai-shu, an 
officer of the state of Chéng, once made this remark: ‘Ceremony is the mainstay of 
heaven and earth, emitting its brilliance in the Five Colors and finding its expression 
in the Five Tones. To support the Five Colors there have come into existence the ‘Nine 
"Liu Shih-p’ei is one of a group of well-known scholars who, though eminent for their accomplishment 
in the native field of learning, are attempting to recast the study of Chinese history and fine arts more or 
less along the scientific lines which now prevail in occidental research. The Kuo-ts’ui Hstieh-pao, or ‘‘ Jour- 


nal of the Essence of National History and Literature,’’ was founded by this group of modern-minded schol- 
ars to publish the studies of China’s cultural development which they made in this modern spirit. 


eden] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Ornaments,’ the ‘Six Hues, and the ‘Five Combined Colors.’ To support the Five Tones 
there have come into existence the “Nine Songs,’ the ‘Eight Winds,’ the ‘Seven Tunes,’ 
and the ‘Six Upper Chords.’ This shows that in the Chou period anything that was 
helpful in bringing out the beautiful went under the name of ceremony. Consequently 
the fine arts were held in the highest estimation and were used, on the one hand to 
give warnings or to show a good example, and on the other to ordain rank or order of 
precedence. ‘To achieve the former object, the arts were concerned with the study and 
use of solid facts, differing entirely from such as are achieved as a flight of fancy; there- 
fore all such works were based upon old traditions, the introduction of new ideas being 
strictly discountenanced. 

“For what was understood to be beautiful could be expressed only by means of the 
true and the good. That which demonstrated an | historical | fact was considered true; 
that which conformed to a sanctioned standard was considered good. During the Chou 
dynasty there were engraved on bronze and carved on stone only proclamations of merit 
and records of distinguished achievements for the information of sons and grandsons; 
all the dances and the music were descriptive representations of glorious virtues; all 
the inscriptions recorded facts only, and the music invariably expressed achievements 
[civil or military ]. Even the maps and pictures, when used, were reproductions of the 
exact forms of things, to which names could readily be assigned, or perhaps a picture 
was made to depict an historical fact, in which case the man who examined it would 
be benefited by the moral lesson it was meant to teach. Thus was beauty achieved 
through the demonstration of fact. 

“The bells, tripods, and so on, were cast by metal workers; the jade tablets and other 
pieces were made by lathe-turners; and there were things of a lower order, such as 
tablets of credence, the tooth-edged boards and upright posts [of the stands for bells and 
sonorous stones], and the like, which were made to show the high or low rank of the 
possessors by the characters or designs carved upon them. Also the costumes, the em- 
broideries, the colors in which the materials were dyed, and the designs painted on the 


materials, all these were in charge of officers specially appointed for these purposes, 


Es79 3 


Chinese Painting 


the object being to standardize the embroideries for different uses, to regulate the styles, 
to fix the lineal measures, to see that the colors used—black, yellow, blue, and red — 
were all pure and good. These are instances in which the beautiful was secured through 
conformity to sanctioned standards. 

“The root of the question, as we have traced it, lies in this, that in the remote past, 
the fine arts served to emphasize dignity and rank, and were the direct outcome of an 
elaborate ceremonial. . . . ‘Thus whatever ancient fine arts may have existed in connec- 
tion with etiquette, ornamentation, and other elaborate institutions, were preserved with 


the ancient ceremonies. This we owe to the Confucians.” 


Ill 
I+ is obviously one of the important influences of this remote antiquity that 
China achieved such a love of fine workmanship, and of that characteristic 
in life and in material objects which we can only define as quality, both of 
which were such important factors in the creation of all her later arts. There 
was no class of artists in the Chou or earlier periods, in our sense of the word; 
but all the many appurtenances for which the deep feeling of the Chinese for 
office and rank created a need,—the robes of state, the jades that designated 
authority, the bronzes which served as emblems of imperial and sacred dig- 
nity,— these beautiful products of their ceremonial rites were all wrought by 
specially trained artisans, whose work was carefully superintended, as we have 
just seen, by specially appointed officials. The materials and colors had to be 
of a degree of fineness that corresponded to the high station of the personage 
for whom they were intended, and in this way an ideal of workmanship and of 
sheer quality was born that China never permitted herself to forget. In the Han 
dynasty, when the civil service examinations gave great impetus to the isolation 


of the scholar class, the artist also developed, as distinct from the artisan; but 


[ 174 J 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


even when the cruder manual labor was contemned by the scholar and artist, the 
love of an exquisite technique persisted, and the need for quality in craftsman- 
ship and in materials was satisfied by the development of a superb handling of 
the calligraphist’s and painter’s brush, and the insistence upon perfection in the 
silks, papers,and inks by means of which their new-found skill was expressed. 

The preservation of these ancient achievements, with all that they implied, 
was not an easy task for the Confucian philosophers. The whole complicated 
system of ceremonial which the Chou dynasty had built up, and the orna- 
mental style of living and of art in which it resulted, were looked upon as 
decadent when the reaction against the weakened central government took 
place. Had it not been for the persistent struggle of the Confucians, the whole 
structure with its magnificent incentive to artistic expression would have been 
overthrown, and the classic Han dynasty, the foundation of the later Chinese 
social and artistic structure, could never have occurred. The same author 


thus describes the characteristics of Han art: 


“From the period of Anterior Ch’in (255-206 B.c.) and Han, scholars gave up indus- 
tries and manufacturing as unworthy of their energies, and for music and painting 
there arose a class of specialists. The secrets of their arts are now lost to us, the only 
one that still gives us an opportunity for study being that of epigraphy. Take the seals 
and stone tablets of the Han period, for instance. All the pictures found [on the latter | 
do not go beyond the two classifications, historical and descriptive, and all the charac- 
ters engraved [on both] are regular in form, never deviating in the slightest degree 
from the established rules. This gives us an idea of the nature of art as cultivated by 
the Hans. Generally speaking, it has a uniformly dignified style; it shows at the same 
time a spirit of antiqueness and primitiveness that is quite lovable. It comes very near 
to the fact-demonstrating principle of Chou and was quite different from the love of the 


unique that characterizes the men of later ages.” 


ise) 


Chinese Painting 


This spirit of traditionalism and the fact-demonstrating principle, as the Chi- 
nese author calls it, which adequately covers all subjects of the Han stones, 
also describes the early pictorial efforts when the artist-class began definitely 


to separate itself from that of the artisans. 


IV 
As examples of the glorious possibilities, as well as the limitations, that so 
strong a classicism involves, we need only study the two earliest Confucian 
paintings which the occidental world possesses, both attributed to Ku K/ai- 
chih.’ One of these, in the British Museum,’ illustrates a Confucian text, 
entitled ‘‘The Admonitions of the Imperial Preceptress”’;* the other, in the 
collection made by Mr. Freer for the Smithsonian Institution, entitled ‘The 
Goddess of the River Lo,’’‘ is really a series of illustrations for Ch’ii Yiian’s* 
poems on the ancient spirit worship of the state of Ch’u. Both pictures, like all 
purely Confucian art expressions, are figure paintings; both are “‘fact-demon- 
strating,”’ and the subjects as well as their techniques are hereditary. The re- 
lationship in treatment of line and mass to Han art, both in the figures and 
in the crude attempts at landscape, is palpable; nor do the paintings, in spite 
of the greater flexibility of their materials, show a much more individual char- 
acter than do the earlier and simpler compositions on stone. Convention domi- 
nates every stroke of the brush as it had formerly dictated those of the chisel. 


* Late fourth century painter. 


*See Binyon’s pamphlet on the Ku K’ai-chih of the British Museum, with whose analysis I differ radically. 
In reply I can only say that Binyon speaks of the Taoist emotions in this painting without defining these 
’? in any way or pointing out their specific effect upon Ku K’ai-chih’s art. Both Mr. Freer’s 
painting and that of the British Museum are now considered copies, but that does not alter their value as 
types. 

* Category II, No. 31. * See text, page 89. Also Category II, Nos. 7, 32. 


EvETe.e 


“6 emotions 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Had Ku K’ai-chih’s name not accidentally come down to us attached to these 
paintings, we could nevertheless have dated these works as purely Confucian 
products, or faithful copies, of the pre-T’ang period, and except from an his- 
torical point of view, the question of their authorship would not have aroused 
any more interest than do the equally impersonal products of Han. In both 
cases the subject and the aesthetic expression are not personal conceptions, 
but racial emotions conveyed in cadences that were the product of a com- 
munal heritage, still reinforced by the experiences of a communal life. It is 
precisely thisimpersonal element, this racial quality, by which all Chinese paint- 
ers, no matter how great, are dominated, these inherited factors whether of 
subject or technique, the feeling of an artistic rhythm which corresponded to 
the rhythm of their social and political existence, that can be isolated as the 
plastic contributions of Confucianism to their art. 

To particularize somewhat more the character of the Confucian element in 
Chinese art, and to show how at all periods it survived, I cannot do better 
than to recount an enlightening experience that happened to me while I was 
comparing, in Mr.Freer’s galleries, the famous “‘ Tribute Horses”’ of Han Kan 
with the painting of a hunt supposed to be the work of a contemporary Tartar 
named HuCh’ien.’ At first sight the latter painting appealed to me much more. 
It had an atmosphere which I defined vaguely as“ singularly modern”; but fur- 
ther study revealed why the undisciplined Tartar should seem nearer to our 
unschooled sense of symmetry than the carefully nurtured classicism of an artist 
like Han Kan, whose love of horse painting placed him wholly within a Han 
tradition. The Tartar painter had evidently studied the Chinese artists, for his 
excellent technique was based upon that of the T’ang period and his sense of 
form was splendidly developed; but the manner in which he composed his form 


*Both paintings are now in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. 


Ges rer peal 


Chinese Painting 


was so chaotic, and the distribution of color so arbitrary, that in comparison 
with the balance of Han Kan and the majesty of his well-measured rhythm, 
the Tartar painting was as untutored as would be the painting of a child next 
to a Cézanne still-life. The Tartar reflected as perfectly his lack of tradition and 
of an harmoniously regulated existence, as Han Kan reflected his carefully 
organized environment and his inherited sense of orderly progression. 

That this contrast was not one of outward ornament, a difference merely 
of subject, is brought out by the fortunate accident that Han Kan’s “ Tribute 
Horses” are arrayed in ‘Tartar trappings and accompanied by Tartar chief- 
tains. The foreign atmosphere is just as strong in the Chinese picture as in the 
Tartar hunt; but in the former all the material is sternly subdued to the Con- 
fucian sense of organization, whereas Hu Ch’ien lacks this synthetic gift, and 
substitutes for the impersonal classicism of Han Kan, a familiar folk-tale qual- 
ity, achieved through a mixture of nazveté and of brutal, uncontrolled energy. 

Thus we find the same serene and noble assurance of line continuing to 
express itself long after other influences had broadened the interests of the 
Chinese artists. The Confucian ideals were, in fact, continuously and purely 
maintained until the time of Li Lung-mien and much later. After Ku K’ai- 
chih, such men as LuT’an-wei (sixth century ), Yen Li-pén( seventh century ), 
Chang Hsiian (eighth century), and Chou Fang (early ninth century ), to 
enumerate a few, carried on the ideals of Confucian figure painting, with ob- 
vious relationship to one another’s work and with an astonishing absence of 
Taoistic or foreign influences. The same continuity which Confucianism had 
achieved for the social structure, it created, through the institution of copying, 
both of subjects and of techniques, for the art history of China. This copying 
was never servile, but consisted of such profound re-creation that most of 


these paintings have more originality, more life, than occidental pictures for 


[ 178 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


which no immediate precedent can be found. Its importance to the develop- 
ment of all phases of Chinese art was immeasurable; and this insistence upon 
continuity, this mechanism for the communization or racializing of all indi- 
vidual vision, was if anything a greater contribution on the part of the Con- 
fucian mentality than its early achievement of an independent and strongly 
founded plastic expression; for the very survival of their own aesthetic be- 
ginnings, as well as those of later inspirations, depended upon this never end- 


ing passion for preservation. 


y 
Nor did their attitude toward tradition contain that fetishistic element that 
makes for the stultification of uncivilized races. They kept their classicism 
active, for they comprehended the limitations as well as the utility of the pre- 
servative instinct, and hastened to assimilate all new ways of thinking, as long 
as these continued to develop. 

It may be objected to this analysis that all forms of progress must show 
continuity, that in Chinese art as in all arts continuity is an only too unavoid- 
able phase of natural development, and therefore not the exclusive product 
of Confucian thinking. It is true that, even in the comparative disorganization 
of occidental life, the great geniuses, whether in literature or in painting, in 
spite of temporary disruptive effects, always prove themselves clearly to have 
maintained a close continuity. But in our civilization this was natural and un- 
guided growth, whereas the Chinese continuity was a deliberately and care- 
fully planned intensive culture —culture, be it noted,as opposed to mere grow- 
ing—and our own results, as compared with theirs, are as much at variance 


as a primeval jungle and an Italian garden. 


Eber 


Chinese Painting 


The care with which each tree that ventured to grow in this well-ordered 
garden was shaped to its own best advantage and to the glory of the whole— 
this is essentially the history of Chinese pictorial art. Confucianism not only 
invented its own beautiful designs, but it shaped the entire garden; and just 
as there was danger that the plan was becoming a little monotonous and stiff, 
new life sprang up, and was guided from its first germination by this feeling 
for an orderly development which their classic culture had established. Before 
we can understand the functioning of this Confucian process of assimilation, 
it is first necessary to appreciate the nature of the new additions, and how 
they presented themselves to the already highly developed Chinese sense of 


form. 


VI 

On as are the Confucian leanings of the Chinese mind, Taoism had ever 
lived close beside them, ready to emerge whenever circumstances favored 
it. The Empire of Han was too firmly built to leave much opportunity for 
individual expression; but during the hostilities, both military and political, of 
the Six Dynasties, the socialization of individual energies was difficult if not 
impossible, and they found their outlet less in service to the state and more 
in personal pursuits of the arts and letters. All the ardor which Confucianism 
had been free to expend on the upbuilding of a great commonwealth was sud- 
denly repressed and literally forced to seek other channels of outlet. As a 
result of this escape from group existence, originality rather than conformity 
became the paramount ideal of behavior,and Taoism ,dominant as all romantic 
periods have been, through a temporary weakness in the classical continuity, 
began immediately to reflect its triumph in artistic fecundity. 


Let us turn again to the statements on this occurrence of the same essayist 


[ 180 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


who characterized the Chou and Han periods for us. Speaking of the scholars 
of Wei and Chin he says: 


“Neglecting convention, they would not suffer themselves to be bound down by cere- 
mony, and when they devoted their attention to any art or craft, they did it according 
to their own dictates, regarding art as a thing for their own amusement. Then scholars 
prided themselves upon their freedom; . . . hence they had an understanding of things 
distinct from those they had actually seen or heard. In poetry, for instance, they aimed 
at creating a sense of style and in painting they admired spiritual beauty. Even in such 
matters as playing an air, discussing the tone of a word, tuning the scholar’s harp, or 
playing a flageolet, they would cudgel their brains to hit upon a manner that should be 
out of the common. Even in playing chess, they invented a style that was very poetic 
and far from the common (or traditional) forms, giving in this way free play to their 
pleasant flights of fancy. This was really the most glorious period for the progress of 
the fine arts. 

“Summing up, we find that the Han people esteemed all that was dignified and 
imposing, the Chin people all that was free and poetic; the Hans held conformity to 
standards as an ideal, whereas the Chins valued the free and natural spirit; thus the 
people of Han forbore from seeking the unprecedented; the people of Chin, on the other 


hand, cherished their inspirations.”’ 


Vil 
Tue list of painters given by Chang Yen-yiian in his Li-tai Ming-hua-chi con- 
tains but six names for the two hundred years of the Posterior Han period 
(A.D. 25-221 ), but for the Chin period (a.p. 265-420) the number leaps to 
twenty-three, and for the third, fourth, and fifth centuries he cites as many 


as eighty-seven names.’ Of these early works, the two scrolls attributed to 


* Native Sources for the History of Chinese Pictorial Art, by Hirth. Eng. ed. of A. E. Meyer, p. 3. 


fcbs te 


Chinese Painting 


Ku K’ai-chih, which have just been discussed, still show a predominant inter- 
est in figure painting, treating landscape as a very subsidiary theme in much 
the same spirit with which it is indicated on the Han stones. But the land- 
scapes of his contemporaries, Tai K’uei and his eldest son Tai Po, are de- 
scribed as far superior to those of Ku K’ai-chih;’ and no doubt the painting 
in the Meyer collection attributed to another famous contemporary, Wang 
Hsi-chih,’ is a clue to the new type of landscape art that was now produced. 
Wang Hsi-chih influenced above all things the history of calligraphy, break- 
ing up the classic tenets through the introduction of the much freer running- 
hand style of writing, and winning for himself the ever unchallenged reputa- 
tion of being China’s most distinguished calligraphist. This same freedom, 
the evolution of new techniques and new forms, became the ideal of the new 
school of landscape painters. Figure subjects were at first thrown to the winds 
by these nature-loving Taoists; in the painting attributed to Wang Hsi-chih 
not a human note appears; but instead landscapes were painted that had a 
vigor and spontaneity of which the Han Confucianists, or even the contempo- 
rary ones like Ku K’ai-chih, had never dreamed. 

The very spirit of the new titles which we find recorded in the art histo- 
ries points to the character of the change that was taking place. The earliest 
men, like Wei Hsieh,’ paint ‘‘The Imperial Park’’ and other subjects that 
speak of a courtly contact; but soon we find titles like ‘Clouds before the 
Wind,” “The Moon in the Water,” ‘“‘ The Streams, Hills,and Lakes of Wu- 


chung,” and kindred subjects, that put the emphasis of attention upon the en- 


*See the Li-tai Ming-hua-chi for all these references. 


*See my article on ‘* A Chinese Primitive’’ with illustrations, published in the Hirth Anniversary Volume. 
The chances are that the painting is a copy, but it is nevertheless a fine and significant document. 


* Third and early fourth century. 


[forsee 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


vironment rather than man. The fifth century artist Wang Wei’ is described 
as being so passionately devoted to landscape that he learned to paint ‘“ex- 
actly what he saw”’; and at the beginning of this same century the scholar- 
recluse Tsung Ping (A.D. 357-425 ) writes the first of China’s many essays on 
landscape painting,” indicating that a sufficient development had taken place 
in the art to make it possible for its various techniques to be systematized and 
recorded. This first attempt was soon elaborated by a more detailed disser- 
tation on ‘‘ The Set Rules for Painting Landscape, Pines, and Rocks,” by the 
Liang Emperor Yiian-ti;* his title implies that the Chinese genius for organi- 
zation had already begun to lay its iron hand upon the new inspirations, and 
it is no surprise, therefore, to learn that the author of these ‘‘set rules” on 
landscape painting is a learned Confucian scholar. 

Thus does the art criticism of the period, together with its literary produc- 
tions as we have read them in Li Lung-mien’s catalogue, help us to trace 
the character of this earliest of artistic rebellions. The beauty of a ritualistic 
existence, the measured rhythms of a regulated art, were scorned by these 
zealous Taoists, for had not Chuangtzi* said, in speaking of the ancient life 
and arts: “‘ Abolish the color scale and the laws of painting, put out the eyes 
of the painters, and men will again find their natural vision”? What, indeed, 
should be more natural than that these men, whose whole wisdom rested upon 
their study of the processes and structure of the universe, should turn to the 


source of their belief for the terms of its most beautiful expression? 
‘Not to be confused with the more famous T’ang painter of the same name. 


*Quoted in the Sung Shu, the History of the Sung Kingdom (a.p. 420-479), in the Li-tai Ming-hua- 
chi (Chap. 6, p. 2b), and in the P’ei-wén-chai Shu-hua-p’u. Some modern scholars have supposed this 
essay to be a forgery because it is not mentioned under Tsung Ping’s biography in the Sung Shu, but the 
Chinese histories mention only very famous literary productions, and the fact that it is quoted in the Li-tai 
Ming-hua-chi argues in favor of its genuineness. 


* Circa a.D. 552. *Chuangtziti lived 330 B.c. See his Chap. 10. 


[ 183 ] 


Chinese Painting 


VIII 
Iw the light of this ancient and unswerving faith in the environment, it be- 
comes almost self-evident what the role of the Taoist artist and the purpose 
of his plastic expression must necessarily have been. Since the world of values 
was one with the world of form, and since there was no approach to values 
except through form, aesthetics became the key to man’s understanding of 
the universe. To a people for whom ideals were not real, apart from their 
instrumentalities, and for whom truth was conveyable only in terms of reality, 
the artist became the high-priest, the chief interpreter of the very meaning 
of life. He expressed for his fellow-beings the joy of the human intellect rev- 
elling in its comprehension of the actual, and art became an ever alluring, 
never ending search to interpret by means of line and space their under- 
standing of the intellectual love of God. 

This thoughtful attitude toward his environment made two things obliga- 
tory for the Taoist artist. His respect for actuality, his belief that ‘earth will 
be accepted before she helps,’ made necessary an intimate knowledge of his 
object, and his further belief that the object is comprehensible only as a part 
of the whole, as a phase of that unity which he called the “‘ Tao,” made it im- 
perative to represent the object comparatively, in an interpretative contrast 
with other objects. To convey his minute knowledge of the object, he was 
obliged to develop a subtle and varied technique; and in order to express his 
sense of the relativity of all things, his feeling for composition had to become 
as delicate and exact as was his thinking. In this way the Taoist artists 
achieved, according to their various abilities and understanding, a metaphysi- 
cal reality, and expressed it more accurately than language ever could, inas- 
much as words are more elusive than forms and spaces. They painted reason 


— succeeded in expressing organically a whole system of philosophic thought. 


[ 184 ] 


at — a 
net Biel § fi 
‘ Part 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Their sense of design, like that of the Confucians, was not a personal 
fancy, but an equally racial conception that they, had gleaned through count- 
less ages from the revolutioris of the firmament and the progress of the sea- 
sons. This inner sense of codrdination, w hieh generation after generation had 
helped to make more exquisite, was reim posed | ‘y them on outward circum- 
stance. The Tao, which they and their ancestors had learned to feel in nature, 


they sought to state in its own terms; but im the earliest executions of this 


concept they, unlike the Confucians, were free. No ancient heritage of use- 


fulness had early linked them with the state No powerful tradition’ bound 


them to express themselves by means of long-established techniques. On the 
contrary, for an idea that had never before been pictorially represented, it 
Was necessary to find new forms; and this, wether with their inherited con- 
tempt for the established and conventiowal, breught it about that the tradition 
of novelty.and independence was just as firmly established for the Taoists as 
had been the tradition of adhwtlke tir worW weitaHodrtists. It became as 


much a custom for the Taoist temp(mxearada peek the individual and the 


strange as it was customary for the classically minded to expand the accepted 


_ Methods of expression. Mi Fei, for example, who spent his whole life strug- 


gling against academic art, is just as typical of Chinese traditions, both ancient 


and modern, as is the classically minded Li Lung-mien. 


ie 4 


Havine defined the origin of the Tseist plastic sense, there follow some 


necessary postulates concerning its characteristics. Since the significance of 

nature was the only thing of greater inepertanee than nature itself, the Tao- 

ist artist strove primarily for an intellectual rather than a visual representa- 
[ 185 J 


| 


ee ee 


Louans. From an Album 
(PLATECKS I 7 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Their sense of design, like that of the Confucians, was not a personal 
fancy, but an equally racial conception that they had gleaned through count- 
less ages from the revolutions of the firmament and the progress of the sea- 
sons. This inner sense of coérdination, which generation after generation had 
helped to make more exquisite, was reimposed by them on outward circum- 
stance. The Tao, which they and their ancestors had learned to feel in nature, 

they sought to state in its own terms; but in the earliest executions of this 
concept they, unlike the Confucians, were free. No ancient heritage of use- 
fulness had early linked them with the state. No powerful tradition bound 
them to express themselves by means of long-established techniques. On the 
contrary, for an idea that had never before been pictorially represented, it 
was necessary to find new forms; and this, together with their inherited con- 
tempt for the established and conventional, brought it about that the tradition 
of novelty and independence was just as firmly established for the Taoists as 
had been the tradition of adherence for the Confucian artists. It became as 
much a custom for the Taoist temperaments to seek the individual and the 
strange as it was customary for the classically minded to expand the accepted 
methods of expression. Mi Fei, for example, who spent his whole life strug- 
gling against academic art, is just as typical of Chinese traditions, both ancient 


and modern, as is the classically minded Li Lung-mien. 


IX 
Havine defined the origin of the Taoist plastic sense, there follow some 
necessary postulates concerning its characteristics. Since the significance of 
nature was the only thing of greater importance than nature itself, the Tao- 


ist artist strove primarily for an intellectual rather than a visual representa- 


[2185.7] 


Chinese Painting 


tion of the object, and sought to establish its solidity rather than its surface. 
Thus preoccupied by the organic structure, he lost all interest in the acci- 
dental phases of nature that so entrance the occidental mind, in the play of 
light and shadow, in impressionism, in that whole welter of temporary con- 
ditions that accompany an object and serve to bury its fundamental features. 
In a life that was in itself evanescent, in a world that was all flux and flow, 
the fleeting and the fugitive could not hold the imagination, and only the 
underlying truth stripped naked of all its transient aspects could be a worthy 
aim. Although we immediately perceive in a Taoist painting the expression 
of a sentiment, a belief, further examination reveals that this sentiment has 
been completely intellectualized through deep knowledge of the expressive 
potentiality of the object,and through an acute appreciation of its physical rela- 
tivity. Thus we find that the Taoistically influenced Chinese painters did not 
work before the object, but loved to let memory sift from a scene or an event 
all the dross of accidental circumstance, before they were ready to select 
and to portray its essential features. Their minds and their spirits were both 
too great to need or to want such a thing as a model; and Li Lung-mien, 
as we have seen in one of his own texts, would at times paint, with startling 
retention of the significant happenings, the picture of something that he had 


> 


experienced nine or ten years before. ‘To Li Lung-mien,” say the native 
texts again and again, “‘it was ever the idea that was important.” 

It was this disdain of superficial actuality that made our conventions of per- 
spective impossible for them. They intellectualized not only form but space, 
and through the adroit juxtaposition of an earthly and a heavenly plane, 
_ learned to imply vast distances, achieving thereby an aerial rather than a ter- 
restrial perspective. To suggest space with the naive device of large objects 


in the foreground and small ones in the background would have seemed to 


pyLsesg 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


them childishly factual, for such a distance is always measurable, and a meas- 
urable distance, for so imaginative a race, was no distance at all. 

Nor was their space the mere emptiness that it so often becomes in occi- 
dental art, but the most significant, the really essential part of the entire com- 
position. The function of space in the paintings of the Taoists can be best 
explained by turning to Laotzii’s discussion of the vacuum in the eleventh 
chapter of the Tao Té Ching: “‘A wheel is made up of thirty visible spokes, 
but the wheel turns because of the central non-visible space [in the nave]. 
A vessel is made of visible clay, but the vessel’s utility depends upon its non- 
visible hollowness. Likewise the essential parts of a house are non-visible 
holes such as its doors and windows. Thus it is the non-visible which renders 
efficacious.”’ 

Not only did they so intelligently suggest the importance of the vacuum, 
but in portraying the Tao, the constant “becoming” of things, it is manifest 
that in order to accomplish their aim, they were obliged to imply the pres- 
ence of the element of time. Aside from the perfect tranquillity which the art 
of so adjusted a race is bound to convey, the entrancing and seemingly in- 
explicable charm of their landscapes is also derived from the fact that they 
convey not the limited fixed impression of a certain scene at a certain mo- 
ment, but through their highly trained sense of the relativity of objects, they 
succeed in suggesting the transitional quality of things in time, and introduce 
thereby into their plastic compositions not only the feeling of infinity, but 
the sense that eternity and the moment are as one to them. Thus their paint- 
ing is definitely fourth dimensional, and the conveying of this idea that even 
space and time are not real apart from their material agencies is one of the 
noblest triumphs of an artistic genius that never proved inadequate to the 


subtlest of their thoughts. 


E187 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Though they were indifferent to temporary effects, they clung to the sug- 
gestion of reality, and achieved form, not as our like-minded modern artists 
do, through an avoidance of representation, but through an emphasis of the 
essentials, through a synthesis rather than a surrender of externality. Real- 
ity, as distinguished from mere actuality, was too significant and too sugges- 
tive to be entirely sacrificed; and when at times they were tempted toward 
a too complete abstraction, they were always saved from it by the fact that 
they already possessed, in their calligraphy, the most highly developed ab- 
stract art that has ever been devised. Whenever the /teratz with more of a 
philosophic than artistic temperament pushed their paintings, as Mi Fei often 
did, beyond the representative state, they realized that they were becoming 
calligraphic, and were forced to admit that nature is ever more suggestive, 
more varied, and more inventive than even generations of the most active 


human imaginations. 


X 
Ass soon as the individual Taoist subjects and techniques were produced 
they were speedily formulized through the same repetitional process that had 
evolved the Confucian type of art. Nor did the Taoist conceptions reach the 
climax of their growth until they had been elevated and perfected through 
this exhaustion of their possibilities for development. Thus did Confucianism 
dominate and sublimate all other influences, even those derived from the 
elemental source of Taoist genius. Without the constant inflow of these new 
materials the Confucian machinery could not have functioned. In spite of the 
exalted beauty of Ku K’ai-chih, we can already feel an exhaustion of the 


purely Confucian subject-matter, and we clearly sense what a cold and frigid 


[48859 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


thing Chinese art would have become without the revivifying assimilation of 
the rich and varied themes of Taoism. Therefore, all Chinese landscapes, ex- 
cept the very early ones, of which we shall scarcely recover many, have their 
original and their traditional, their Taoist and their Confucian elements; and 
while purely Confucian paintings are numerous, purely Taoist paintings are, 
and always must be, exceedingly rare. Only the first moments of the break 
toward freedom could give birth to the purely Taoist inspiration; for imme- 
diately the new-found ideas became hereditary, and later paintings inevitably 
show the same varied mixture of Taoism and Confucianism which the Chinese 
mentality itself presented. 

In trying to decide whether a given landscape is more Confucian or more 
Taoist, more classic or more romantic in its style, the character of the figure 
painting is always a very helpful clue. Though the Taoists were primarily 
landscape artists, they also evolved a perfectly distinct treatment of the figure, 
which in the later form of its development is exemplified in the painting, or 
copy of a painting, by Li Lung-mien, in the Freer collection, of the Taoist 
monk Liu Hai and his three-legged toad. I have not yet been able to gather 
enough material to clarify the origin and development of Taoist figure paint- 
ing, for the examples of such subjects in Mr. Freer’s collection are compar- 
atively late in date, but in the T’ang and Sung landscapes the two schools 
are already quite distinct. Whenever the style of the landscape is academic, 
notably so in the subjects originated by Li Ssi-hsiin and his son Li Chao-tao, 
the figures are treated in the noble simplicity of the classic tradition; and 
whenever a landscape is made in the free and more calligraphic Taoist man- 
ner, as in the paintings by Mi Fei, the figures also are loosely drawn and con- 
structed, are seen in the poetic and individual vein rather than as social types. 


Moreover, it is interesting to see that the Sung painters who traditionalized 


[ 189 J 


Chinese Painting 


the new Taoist techniques, especially the followers of Wang Wei, used the 
Confucian manner of painting the figure as clear proof of their academic habit 
of mind. Those men who painted in both ways, as most of them were capable 
of doing, usually did the figures in the classic style and dress for academic 
landscapes, and in the careless calligraphic manner when their landscape was 
more romantic in mood. 

Under such conditions, when men gave their artistic individualities to the 
world by means of the same subjects and the same strokes, it may be inferred 
that a dull uniformity must have prevailed; and there did, indeed, exist a large 
body of mediocre men whose work is painfully monotonous. But the great Chi- 
nese artists achieved styles that are as distinct as are our handwritings, though 
we use in them the self-same alphabet. Those men who succeeded in tran- 
scending the tradition became giants of strength, and upon the lesser talents 
it always imposed a minimum of high conception and able workmanship. 
Moreover, the advantages of this traditionalism reach the observer as well; for 
having once established in our minds the general themes of the Chinese paint- 
ers, we are forced, after eliminating the already familiar content, to centre our 
interest upon the art with which it is presented. Thus there is in no other art 
field the same obligatory training for the eye, no instrument more exquisite 
for the refining of the purely aesthetic perceptions and sensibilities. 

Artists who inherit both subject-matter and technique are bound, as the only 
method left them for expressing originality, to develop their accepted vehicles 
through depth of insight, and to perfect its expression through the specifically 
aesthetic side of their production. This fact made for a great mental profundity 
and a powerful and infinitely varied plasticity in those men who were strong 
enough to lift themselves above a mere reiteration of their inherited formulas. 


A great artist was therefore not only a man capable of comprehending pro- 


[ 190 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


found social or philosophic theories, but one who brought to them his own con- 
tributions, as well as the inordinate skill that is necessary if the hand is to state 
such subtle accents of the mind. Nor could they hope, with such restrictions 
and such high demands, to win favor with a jaded public by eccentricity of 
thought, with mere tricks of technique, or with a bizarre selection of subjects. 
These superficialities, which a less circumscribed artist is only too apt to call 
to his assistance, they could never use to excite a temporary enthusiasm; they 
were bound, in order to stand out successfully before a critical and cultured 
public, to think further, to feel more deeply than their fellow-men, and to de- 
velop, through a practice that began with the first childish attempts at callig- 
raphy, the unhindered coordination of brush and brain that was needed to 
give their intellectual and emotional superiority its full value. | 
This inevitable emphasis of method rather than subject-matter also kept 
their art from becoming literary. Their paintings, especially those of Li Lung- 
mien, have almost invariably a narrative or didactic content; but he could tell 
a story just as he could point a moral, without for an instant sacrificing his 
plastic purposes to any other. This is one of the greatest achievements if com- 
pared with the eternal struggle in the occidental world, particularly among 
the more sentimentally inclined of our races, between the poetizing element 
of life and the more controlled, more sternly artistic processes of plastic repre- 
sentation. We have produced an ample number of monumental constructive 
geniuses, but we have rarely been able plastically to depict a narrative with- 
out falling into a lesser form of expression that has a strongly literary appeal 
when it is not purely illustrative in character. The Italians have some four- 
teenth century frescoes which represent the nearest approach to this bold fus- 
ing of several arts, but there we usually find the story broken into separate 


fragments, whereas the Chinese scrolls, though they used this device in some 


Estorte) 


Chinese Painting 


of the early paintings, soon succeeded in unfolding a panorama of continued 
narrative, portrayed with an unbroken and evenly sustained plastic inven- 
tion. At any moment the eye rests upon a completely satisfactory composition 
which, in many, particularly of the landscape scrolls, reveals through its grad- 
ual changes the development, the climax, and an ever restful solution of the 
situation that is being developed. 

Just as they succeeded in life in seeing spirit and matter, the ideal and the 
real, as a single whole, thus in art, substance and form were so inseparable 
that the one became unthinkable without the other. Form was nothing if not 
the adequate expression of the idea. To them as to the art-haunted intellect 
of Henry James, “Form is substance to that degree that there is absolutely 
no substance without it.” 

That the reverse of this proposition is also true, that there can be no form 
without substance, is equally demonstrated by the history of Chinese art. As : 
long as their philosophic outlook remained powerful and spontaneous, as long, 
more particularly, as the Taoist battle for individual liberty was maintained, 
so long was China and Chinese painting one of the finest experiments in or- 
ganized freedom that the world has ever seen. Not until the end of the Sung 
dynasty, when their faith in the Tao, in the guiding power of reality, was 
weakened, and Confucianism became established as an unchallenged routine, 
did art itself grow mechanical and over-institutionalized. The technique of the 
Ming artists was often as fine as that of the Sung artists; the excellence of 
their critical work indicates that their sensibilities were just as keen; but their 
intellects had lost that grandeur of comprehension which distinguished their 
ancestors, and the impulse to record the rhythmic harmony of the universe 
had lessened. The most skilful hand cannot convey what the mind has not 


experienced, and these later works of men without faith in the world are like 


[ 192 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


those wondrous shells that one finds upon the beach, from which the life that 


they enfolded has gone forever. 


XI 

Wraeruer the aesthetic Confucian background and its intense cultivation 
of all new subjects and techniques or the spirit-freeing power of Taoism and 
its inherent morphology are the more important factors in Chinese art, it is 
no easier to determine than to decide in our own culture whether the classic 
or the romantic eras are the greater. Each person is drawn to the thing that 
is nearer to his own needs; and it is neither tendency alone but the mag- 
nificent merging of the two that makes Chinese art so inexhaustible a source 
of beauty and wisdom. Consoling, however, to those who feel that emotion 
can best express itself, even in its profoundest depths, through the intellec- 
tual conquest of introspection and mysticism, is the staunch objectivity and 
the structural firmness manifested in the literary and in the artistic achieve- 
ments of this Chinese romanticism. These works prove beautifully and con- 
clusively that the non-factual, the poetizing element in life need not be the 
ingrown product, the sickly mixture of egoism and tears, which the Occident 
has so often made of it. The history of Chinese pictorial art demonstrates that, 
in order to sustain an artistic continuity expressive of the social continuity, it 
is necessary to have a classicism that is firmly rooted in the life of the race; 
but it shows with equal certainty that romanticism is not the diseased condi- 
tion of the intellect that Goethe would have it seem; that, on the contrary, 
it is a normal and necessary refertilization of the race-mentality whenever 
its classicism becomes sterile. 

It must not, however, be supposed that I am inventing categories when I 


divide the mainsprings of Chinese art into those of Confucian and those of 


[ 193 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Taoist origin, for the Chinese themselves recognized such a division when 
they spoke of the Northern and Southern schools. In the Chin dynasty, when 
the Taoists first broke up the classic art tenets, this spiritual rebellion was 
confined exclusively to South China,’ while the north remained traditional 
and Confucian in its thought and its art forms. This temperamental division 
showed itself not merely in painting, but necessarily expressed itself in lit- 
erature, calligraphy, and even in the very games that were used as diver- 
sions. At that time the significance of the term Northern as classic and South- 
ern as individualistic became fixed; and though in the T’ang dynasty the two 
artistic styles were no longer geographically separated, these epithets were 
later applied to the art of Li Sst-hsiin and Wang Wei because the former 
was so firmly traditional and the latter so original in his compositions and 
techniques. 

The cause for this local development of the two movements must be purely 
political, but the Chinese authors who discuss the point give us the fact with- 
out explanation. For corroboration I quote once more the article by Liu Shih- 


p’ei in the Kuo-ts’ui Hsiieh-pao for 1907: 


“Since the Chin period the fashion grew upon the scholars in private and public life 
to cultivate the arts of calligraphy, painting, and chess. The southerners in an inde- 
pendent manner showed a poetical and transcendent spirit, while the northerners pains- 
takingly tried to preserve the traditional and dignified. Thus in calligraphy the south- 
erners were at their best when they practised the informal |tieh] styles and the north- 
erners were strong in stone inscriptions | pei]; for the style of the Southern school was 
easy, free, and graceful, and the hsing [intermediate style between text and running- 
hand | and the ts’ao [running-hand | forms of calligraphy were greatly in vogue; Yang 


Hsin, Liu Huai, Hsiao Tzti-yiin, and Wang Séng-ch’ien, modelling their writings after 


* See the official History of the Chin Dynasty, also supra, page 37 and note. 


[ 194 J 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Wang UHsi-chih and his son, indulged their wildest fancies in a florid and graceful 
style, with the result that all traces of the square seal-characters [li] were effaced day 
by day. On the other hand, the Northern school was sedate and simple, and conformed 
to all set rules and established standards; as its general style was modelled upon that 
of more recent calligraphists, and also upon the old forms of the Han period, the strokes 


were strong and upright, embodying in the square forms the spirit of roundness.” 


The author then traces the same temperamental division between north and 


south in their literary style, and ends: 


“T point out these two arts to illustrate that the division of the fine arts into two schools’ 
—Northern and Southern— began at about the period of Eastern Chin [ a.p. 317-420 ]. 
This division prevailed without change right down to the time of Sui. While by the 
Northern school the ancient styles and methods were preserved, the Southern school 


evolved a world of new ideas and tendencies.” 


He then goes on to show how the Southern school developed art critics such 
as the famous Hsieh Ho (end of fifth century ) and Yu Chien-yii, who gradu- 
ally disseminated southern ideas in the north and broke up the geographical 
division of styles so that no such classification obtained for the country by the 
beginning of the T’ang dynasty. The names, however, had become so defi- 
nitely indicative of the two schools of Chinese thought that their use was illu- 
minating even when the geographic significance was lost; and the application 
of the term Northern or Confucian to Li Sst-hsiin, and Southern or Taoist to 
Wang Wei, indicates clearly that the Chinese recognized but the two influ- 
ences in their landscape art, and ignored the Buddhist element that our occi- 
dental critics have always wished to see there. 


This analysis differs from the opinions on this question expressed by Giles 


‘This date also supports my previous arguments concerning the beginnings of Chinese landscape painting. 


[ 195 ] 


Chinese Painting 


in his ‘‘ Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art,”’* by Laufer in his 
article on Wang Wei,’ and by Mather in his much quoted essay on Chinese 
Art;° but in the historical outline by Liu Shih-p’ei we have the explanation 
of one of the most learned of modern Chinese scholars. Moreover, none of 
our occidental critics has advanced an alternative explanation of these terms, 
but they all admit vaguely that the use of the adjectives Northern and South- 
ern “implies something like our own ill-defined antithesis between the classic 
and romantic.’’ Though this difference may be “ill-defined” in our cultural 
development, it is very clearly separated in China as the Confucian and Taoist 
influences, and to this extent even the occidental writers support the Chinese 
interpretation of these designations. 

In order to see how landscape styles changed from Southern to Northern, 
became academic and Confucianized, one need only follow the evolution of 
the techniques of Wang Wei, the greatest exponent of Taoist art. For in a 
single generation his startlingly free forms were traditionalized by copyists 
like Li Shéng (tenth century ) and Yen Wén-kuei (early eleventh century ); 
even a painter like Kuo Hsi (tenth century ), though he had his own brilliantly 
original techniques, did very abstract mountain scenes in the academic style 
that had evolved from the romanticism of Wang Wei. Very rarely, indeed, 
do we find landscape painters like Wang Wei and Li Ssti-hsiin who were 
wholly committed to one style or the other. Most of the later men, like Li 
Ch’éng, Tung Yuan, and Fan K’uan, were adepts at both manners, but rarely 
mingled them in a single picture,as we shall find Li Lung-mien had the 
courage and the art to do. No history of Chinese landscape art can be written 
until the critics clearly understand the quality of each of these styles, together 
with their political and philosophical significance; and had the students of 


"Second edition, p. 46. * Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, April, 1912. * The Nation, Vol. XCII. 


LatOGey 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Chinese painting but earlier felt the need for this, we might have been spared 


the ignis fatuus of the Buddhist influence. 


XII 

Since Chinese pictorial art was born of the happy intermingling of tra- 

ditionalism and individualism that has just been described, how could Bud- 
-dhism have influenced the situation? All that can be said for it, with actual 
proof to support the statement, is that it brought additional material in the way 
of figure subjects for the Confucian process to work upon. This material was 
colorful, bizarre, and stimulating, but it was not the result of such deep philo- 
sophic need for aesthetic formulation as lay in Taoist thought, and therefore 
the Buddhistic art-product brought no such new and magnificent compre- 
hension of the meaning of form. The Buddhas and Lohans that came to 
China as models could, at best, have had no more plastic content than is shown 
in the great majority of the frescoes of religious origin in the early temples 
and caves; but the Confucian intellect took these foreign designs, and grafted 
them upon the life-giving body of its own vital plasticity. That is why Bud- 
dhist figure painting became invigorated in China and remained flaccid in 
every other country. In China the root-stock was splendidly alive and the 
new graft flourished; in other countries where there was no native growth 
to which Buddhism could affix itself, the result was one of completely arrested 
development. Such art as Buddhism produced in the other countries to which 
it was transplanted, in Thibet, Java, Turkestan, Cambodia, was of importance 
both historically and culturally because without this influence these lands and 
peoples would have been robbed of their greatest developing factor. For them 


the value of Buddhism can scarcely be exaggerated, but in China, where it 


Rey 


Chinese Painting 


was completely overshadowed both by the indigenous systems of thought 
and their aesthetic motivations, this foreign influence should be given only 
its proportionate value. 

The one specifically Buddhist contribution to the early cultural manifes- 
tations of China was stone sculpture of the human form in low relief and in 
the round. As we are tracing out the antecedent influences of Sung pictorial 
art, sculpture may seem an extraneous theme, and yet it must be touched 
upon for the purpose of contrasting its history with that of the Buddhist figure 
paintings. 

The beginning of Buddhist sculpture marks the first appearance of a popu- 
lar art in China. The people, the anonymous multitude, deliberately deprived 
from earliest times of all instruction, had from the first taken the leading part 
in the Buddhist movement, and they now took over the creation of an ico- 
nography that should satisfy their needs. Though we hear of an occasional 
artist like Tai K’uei, who deliberated over a statue of Buddha for three years, 
the production of these sculptures, whether in separate pieces or in the amaz- 
ing groups at Yung-kang, Lo-yang, and Lung-mén, was, on the whole, com- 
munal, the work of artisans rather than of artists. 

Though the Chinese had some few isolated examples of free sculpture 
before the advent of Buddhism, their highly developed calligraphic training 
led them to prefer a similar treatment of stone, and their native religious sense 
was too unanthropomorphic to have developed an interest in sculpture of the 
human form. The Buddhist engravings on stone, such as the wonderful and 
well-known procession of donors at Lung-mén, remained Chinese in style, as 
they were based directly upon the Han stones of similar character; but for the 
figures in high relief China afforded no models, and these, as well as the free- 


"See the Li-tai Ming-hua-chi under his name. 


[ 198 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


standing figures, are either South Indian or Gandharan in their plasticity as 
well as in posture and decoration. 

The South Indian influence was the nobler, and when it survived in Chinese 
reproductions in a pure state, Buddhist sculpture was often fine even in China. 
The Gandharan stones, hybrid offspring of a decadent Greece and the hard 
realism of North India, were unpleasant even in origin, and when they had 
been imitated by a Chinese artisan whose training and instincts were against 
the use of the human form as a subject, it is not surprising that the result was 
seldom agreeable, and often very awkward. Moreover, as the Amidist faith 
spread, the demand for sculptures grew enormously,and it soon became more 
important to enumerate mechanically the symbols of sanctity than to achieve 
plastically the atmosphere of holiness. At times, especially in the North Wei 
period, in which the early Indian influence was strongest, Buddhism produced 
occasional pieces that are fine, but even the most beautiful specimens are not 
often plastically perfect, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of 
Buddhist sculptures are aesthetically negligible. 

Through increase in demand and decrease in freshness of inspiration, Bud- 
dhist sculpture soon degenerated, even in those provinces where the models 
and native workmanship were finest, from communistic production to what 
can be designated as a manufacture of idols. In order to realize the genius of 
Buddhism as compared with the genius of China, one need only visualize the 
monotonous repetition of the soft and sinuous forms that represent the best 
examples of Buddhist sculpture, with the austere and vigorous beauty of line 
in the endless variety of contemporary grave figures, of the bronzes, both use- 
ful and religious, or the potteries of all sorts in which the indigenous Chinese 
sense of form continued to find expression. It may be said that this repetition 


in the Buddhist sculptures was due to ritualism, but the Chinese objects with 


[ 199 J 


Chinese Painting 


which we are comparing them were no less ritualistic, and yet they never lost 
their strength or individuality. 

When we turn to Buddhist figure painting we find that much of it was just 
as communal, just as mediocre and uninteresting, as was most of the sculp- 
ture. This nameless mass of work, of which the important Stein collection at 
the British Museum and most of the frescoes at Tun-huang” are the finest 
examples, ever remained foreign and flat in character, whether it was pro- 
duced in China or elsewhere. It consisted simply of pleasant outline drawings 
that were filled in with brilliant color.’ If we compare these products with the 
achievements of any one of the great T’ang figure painters, such as Wu Tao- 
tzu,’ his pupil Lu Léng-chia, or even the later Kuan-hsiu,’ as well as Li Lung- 
mien, himself, we can appreciate the difference between the vigorous Chinese 
mentality and that of the Buddhist pattern-makers. In order to be definite, let 
us study what actually happened in contemporary paintings to any given Bud- 
dhistic art convention after its translation into Chinese modes of expression. 
Take for example the change that took place in the well-known schematic 
treatment of the muscles, particularly in the arms and legs of the figures of 
Lohans. The custom of outlining the muscle-formation came from India and 
Thibet, where it was originated to denote the effects of the ascetic life. The 
use of this technique in the foreign paintings, and also in the anonymous, 
purely religious productions in China, is quite devoid of any three-dimensional 


feeling. The lines exist only as a flat design, and even to the devotee the effect 


* elliot, Les Grottes de Touen-Houang. 
*Hirth, Native Sources for the History of Chinese Pictorial Art, English version of A. E. Meyer, pp. 14,15. 


* Although Wu Tao-tzii’s work is known only through copies, these and the paintings of his pupils suffi- 
ciently define its character. 


*A great painter of Buddhist subjects who lived c. a.p. 936. 


* See illustrations of Lohan paintings. 


[200 J 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


as a ritualistic symbol must have been weakened by its failure to suggest the 
vividness of life. In the paintings of the great T’ang masters this convention 
becomes an instrument for the construction of amazing studies in form. What 
was an inanimate series of lines becomes an opportunity for building up per- 
fectly related and plastically significant masses, and a convention of purely 
religious origin becomes a convention of aesthetic value. 

With a different public and a different motive for production, it is but nat- 
ural that the Buddhist paintings of truly Chinese provenance should differ 
from those of other countries. These paintings were made to appeal not to 
the great mass of the faithful, but toa much smaller and much more artisti- 
cally cultivated public. The foreign models were transformed because they 
were shifted from the religious traditions of Buddhism to the older, more 
sternly aesthetic traditions of Chinese pictorial art, and when Buddhist figure 
painting is artistically and not merely historically noteworthy, this is due, not 
to the foreign ritualistic contributions, but to the ancient Chinese sense of 
rhythm to which these symbols were made to conform. 

This is the main distinction between Chinese and other Buddhist paintings. 
In India, Thibet, and elsewhere, they were philosophic conceptions executed 
for the illustration of a religious idea; in China they were plastic conceptions 
whose appeal was strictly aesthetic. They were lifted into an entirely diferent 
level of thought, from that of local to that of universal value. 

Buddhist sculpture deteriorated in China because it had no real relationship 
to Chinese thought and expression; Buddhist figure painting became great 
because it was carried along on the powerful current of Chinese pictorial 
art. 

For those who have no opportunity to study the original objects, the his- 
tory of Buddhist art in China from the fifth to the eleventh centuries is roughly 


E .20t 4 


Chinese Painting 


outlined in the four volumes of photographs of ‘‘Les Grottes de Touen- 
Houang:”’ which have been published by Pelliot. The sculpture’ in these caves 
soon becomes mediocre even when it has not been restored. The stereotyped 
Buddhist paintings’ are found in large quantity, as has already been stated, but 
they are the very best of their kind, and occasionally the designs rise to a high 
level of loveliness and grace.* Charming as these things are, they cannot com- 
pare with the four portraits of Lohans,* which must have been done by some 
great Chinese artist who had learned to weld together the Buddhist outlines 
and the firm structural sense of his own race. In addition to these fine examples 
of Sino-Buddhist portraiture, we find in the numerous processions of donors, 
both male and female, superb examples of what can be called purely Chinese 
art. The figures, horses, carts, and all the decorations of these paintings are 
closely related to the Confucian paintings of the fourth and fifth centuries, 
which were in turn derived from the stone engravings of Han. We can here 
compare the facile quality of Buddhist art at its best with the restrained but 
vigorous forms of the ancient Chinese school of art, and gain a fairly clear 
conception of the amalgamation that took place between the two. 

Once China had absorbed the Buddhist designs, the same traditionalizing 
process began that has been explained in connection with the Taoist subjects. 
It may be said that I have objected to the constant restatements of Buddhism, 
but praise those of China. The difference, however, between Confucian and 
Buddhist conservatism is that the former, at least during the periods which 


we are discussing, was a critical evolutionary progress to which each genera- 


"Volume III, Plates 191, 192 are among the best. 

*Volume I, Plates 15 to 22 and Plates 52 to 61. 

*Volume III, Plates 157, 173. *Ibid., Plates 158 to 161. 
* Volume I, Plates 44 to 49. Volume II, Plates 92, 116. 


[ 202 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


tion added its contributions, whereas the latter was nothing but a continuous 
reverberation. 

Robbed of its obfuscating religious nimbus, the Buddhist influence, from the 
point of view of the pictorial history of China, is a phase of the general inter- 
est of the Chinese in everything that was foreign, so especially vivid during 
the Han period and again during that of T’ang. So considered, a Buddhist 
subject has the same value as any of the innumerable delineations of foreign 
tribes and foreign customs. The acquisition of all this new material enriched 
the Chinese tradition and acted as an additional incentive, especially to figure 
painters like Wu Tao-tzu and Han Kan; but creatively speaking, these for- 
eign influences, whether lay or religious, must take their places among the 
constant absorptions that China as the greatest eastern power, both physi- 
cally and intellectually speaking, continually practised upon her surrounding’s 
as long as her superiority continued. 

If Buddhism had an enlivening effect upon the figure painting of China, it 
could have been only deleterious to the development of landscape art, when 
it did not consent merely to reinforce the Taoist principles. Taoist art, as we 
know it, was too profound an expression, too intimately bound up with life, to 
_ be expanded by the sentimental Buddhistic attitude toward nature; and if the 
Buddhists, as such, had any effect upon that close union of truth and beauty, 
they must have weakened it by the intrusion of mystic ideas that obscured 
the firmness of the Taoist beliefs, and broke, rather than built up, the clarity 
of Taoist morphology. Of all the many writers who have poetized on the sub- 
ject of Buddhism and Chinese landscape painting, only Petrucci in his ‘‘ La 
Nature dans la Peinture Chinoise” advances something like an explanation 
of the miracle. He says that Buddhism brought to intellectual China a much 


needed emotional stimulus. He gives no proofs of his statement, nor does he 


[ 203 | 


Chinese Painting 


explain just when the transfusion took place; but any one who knows the 
magnificent zeal of Confucian essays, or the passionate force of Taoist poetry, 
can scarcely be persuaded that China was in need of any greater emotional 
powers than she already possessed. 

Even in the field of figure painting the large group of Taoist subjects, with 
its innumerable heroes and supernatural beings, had also broadened the Con- 
fucian techniques, and it is difficult, for lack of early material, to measure the 
precedence and relative importance in this field of the Taoist and Buddhist 
influences. What is certain, however, is that both flourished because they fell 
into the hands of people who had already learned how to paint, and because 
they underwent the same developmental Confucian process which so domi- 
nated and so unified an infinite variety of aesthetic inspirations, that they can 


all rightly be grouped together under the name of Chinese art. 


XIII 
Onrty if we have grasped this process of constantly elevating the individual 
to the typical factor which the Confucian system imposed upon the pictorial 
evolution of China, can we appreciate the history of Chinese art, and the posi- 
tion of Li Lung-mien in that evolution; for in Li’s work we see China’s power- 
ful classicism at the moment of its widest potency. Not until the main stream 
of China’s art tradition had assimilated all the tributaries which were to feed 
its onward sweep do we find, as the culmination of this mingling of forces, 
the all-embracing art of Li Lung-mien. Therefore his classicism was a very 
different thing from the pure Confucianism of the Han and earlier dynasties. 
Just as the Confucianism of the Sung dynasty differed from that of the Han 
dynasty through the broadening of its contacts, so the art of Li Lung-mien 


[ 204 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


differed from that of a Ku K’ai-chih or a Lu T’an-wei, for it unified all the 
new aesthetic inspirations into something larger and freer than had hereto- 
fore existed in the field of Chinese plastic invention. 

The fact that Li Lung-mien was the most eclectic of China’s painters does 
not necessarily imply that his period represents the climax of Chinese art. 
The mightiest art is produced when inspirations are fresh, and there is no 
better way of sensing the quality of Li Lung-mien’s work than by compar- 
ing it boldly with the harvest of that happy T’ang period when so many 
of the art enthusiasms were young and powerful. Having indicated how he 
differed from that glorious era which absorbed thirstily the new and the 
strange, we can turn to a comparison with the staid Confucian painters of the 
fourth and fifth centuries, and show with equal clarity how Li Lung-mien was 
bound to differ from them also, because of the great mental impacts that had 
intervened. | 

The most varied and most creative period of Chinese art had occurred more 
than three hundred years before Li Lung-mien was born, during the reign 
of the Emperor Ming-huang (A.D. 713-756 ), when most of China’s art tra- 
_ ditions were permanently established. Then it was that Wu Tao-tzu painted 
temple decorations which China has not forgotten, though they have been 
destroyed for over a thousand years; then Han Kan and his master T’s’ao Pa 
did their brilliant horse paintings; then Li Ssu-hsiin and his no less famous 
son Li Chao-tao, between military campaigns, poured forth their cataracts of 
green and gold, while Wang Wei, their rival landscape artist, with more 
individualistic vision, created a technique that became the ideal of an endless 
chain of followers. Then it was that all the new art influences, both indige- 
nous and foreign, were at their height; and this active rivalry gave to the 


T’ang period an elemental vigor which the later, more assimilated Sung period 


[ 205 J 


Chinese Painting 


could not possess. Wu Tao-tzti’s Lohans still speak strongly of his foreign 
models; Han Kan’s ancient horse traditions, as a sign of the free communi- 
cation that existed with the west, are adorned with barbaric Tartar trappings 
and led by gorgeously embellished Tartar chiefs. Li Sst-hsiin, to be sure, as 
well as his brilliant son Li Chao-tao, is purely indigenous and academic; 
both of them are Confucianized Taoists like Li himself, and therefore often 
resemble him in their landscape forms; but Wang Wei’s dominant Taoism 
creates new and vigorous techniques that clearly indicate how, as a rule, in 
that period, originality was besting tradition. 

We see in these paintings how eager China was to submit her own ideas 
to the test of new and especially of foreign contacts; but in the paintings of 
Lung-mien, though he treats the identical subjects, we realize that the aes- 
thetic, and therefore the mental, doors of China had, in the meantime, closed 
upon the influences of the outer world. For Li’s art has lost entirely the lure 
of the foreign and the exotic, so marked in the T’ang masters, and has be- 
come essentially Chinese. The barbaric splendor of Han Kan has disap- 
peared in the work of his pupil. In Li Lung-mien’s day, tribute horses still 
poured into the imperial stables; but, in Li’s paintings, this earliest of Con- 
fucian traditions has been purged once more of its obvious foreign influence, 
and the horses of Lung-mien have forgotten their Tartar origin. In Buddhist 
subjects, he was avowedly the pupil of Wu Tao-tzu, but the violent agita- 
tion of that master’s line, borrowed from his foreign models, is subdued, in 
the Lohans of Lung-mien, to a suavity and grace that bespeak the native 
scholar’s demeanor; the strange features are retained, but their harshness is 
softened to approach more nearly the kindly and cultivated lineaments of 
China. 


The absence of the foreign in Li’s art is explicable, if we realize that the 


[ 206 J 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


artists of China, since the reign of Ming-huang, had one and all spent their 
time analyzing and reanalyzing the ideas and strokes of their great prede- 
cessors, until a complete Chinese assimilation had been established. Not a 
single new influence had made itself felt in the meantime; and, though in Li’s 
art the earlier material is amplified and raised to a supreme degree of plastic 
expression, there does not appear, even in his work, a single note that had 
not already been sounded by the various T’ang masters. The value of Con- 
fucian traditionalism lay, after the advent of Taoism and Buddhism, not in the 
finding of new subjects, but in the aesthetic perfection which it achieved for 
material that was already at hand. From the point of view of substance, its 
“creative days were largely over; from the point of view of form, its creations 
were still sublime. | 
No adverse criticism of the art of the great landscape and figure painters 
of the ninth and tenth centuries is implied in this. Their modifications of the 
classic heritage were often original and significant; but their constant recrea- 
tion of earlier work no doubt explains why Lung-mien ignores them so com- 
pletely, and seeks his masters among the giants that made the eighth and 
earlier centuries illustrious in the annals of Chinese art. Never does he copy 
the paintings of the men who lived during this interim; so completely did he 
neglect them that with the exception of one Tartar horse painter,’ he never 
so much as mentions their names. Yet he, like the predecessors he ignores, 
was the product of his age; he, too, could but carry on the process of artistic 
reincarnation, and recreate with his Confucian imagination all the materials 


that the outer world had wafted to his shores. 


* The Prince of Tung-tan. See Category I, No. 14. 


[ 207 ] 


Chinese Painting 


XIV 

Turrerore it is not surprising to find Li Lung-mien declaring the firmest 
allegiance to the more classical masters such as Ku K’ai-chih and Lu T’an- 
wei, rather than to the later men. The Chinese critics, moreover, are agreed 
that these two classic painters exerted the greatest influence upon his work. 
The opinions to this effect of the Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u and of Su Tung-p’o have 
already been given. In analyzing Li’s style in the Buddhist painting of the 
“King of Hell,’’* Su Tung-p’o, who was one of the finest of Sung connoisseurs, 
again states that,in addition to the ideas of Wu Tao-tzt,, who was probably the 
originator of the subject, Li has “‘ caught the spiritual beauty of Ku and Lu.” 
Again and again his Buddhist and Taoist paintings are spoken of as “antique” 
instyle; and K’ung Kuang-t’ao, in his ‘‘ Notes on Calligraphies and Paintings,’ * 
while discussing Li’s pictureof “Laotzii Delivering the Tao Té Ching,’’*asserts 
specifically that Lung-mien painted the draperies of his figures in the man- 
ner of Ku K’ai-chih. We often find Li proving his admiration for these early 
- masters through numerous copies of their paintings,’ and of painters like Chou 
Fang* who, though they lived in a later age, were themselves completely cap- 
tivated by the same severely classical use of line and space. 

This gradually growing ascendancy of traditionalism in art, from the eighth 
century onward, only parallels what the catalogue describes as happening in 
the world of politics, literature, and philosophy. It is therefore but natural to 
find Li Lung-mien, even in his Taoist and Buddhist paintings, looking back 
for aesthetic guidance to the purely Confucian technicians of the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth centuries. The austerity of their form, the limpid flow of their line, 
appeal to him more than does the powerful, less circumscribed art of a Wu 


* Category III, No. 60. * Ibid., No. 53. See also illustration No. 15. 
"Category II, Nos. 28, 29, 36, etc. * Ibid., No. 27. 


[ 208 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Tao-tzu, because his conception of life was closer to that of the earlier masters 
than it was to that of the men of T’ang. He might take his subject from any 
moment of China’s development, but the plastic form that he gave those 
various subjects was bound to be the product of his own experience. Since 
his thought and life were much closer to that of the classical period, so also 
was his art. His rhythm, therefore, lost entirely the passionate note of the 
T’ang dynasty, and returned to the ordered serenity, the noble dignity, of a 
mentality that moved once more in the unquestioned routine of a Confucian 
universe. 

How could it be otherwise? The Sung dynasty merely thought what the 
men of T’ang had deeply felt; whereas the earlier painters were either Con- 
fucian or Taoist or Buddhist, Li was all three of these, and the very breadth of 
his interests made the predominance of emotional intensity impossible. Al- 
ways do we find in Li’s aesthetics a highly intellectualized treatment of his 
materials; and his superb artistic achievements, the absolutely unrivalled 
beauty of his work, remove for all time, from the life of the mind, the taint 
of the commonplace and the unimaginative with which modern aesthetics 
attempts to surround it. Emotion played its inevitable part in the mental 
processes of Li Lung-mien, or he could not have entered so fully into the 
portrayal of little children, alluring fairies, beautiful women, the entire gamut 
of Taoist dreams or Buddhist fancies; but those sensuous perceptions were 
always clarified by a relentless analysis of all things felt. It is the very first 
implication of his lucid compositions that the artist lived in complete aware- 
ness of the self and the environment, and through his intelligent acceptance 
of this constant interrelationship, poured forth a perfectly balanced and per- 
fectly comprehended plastic universe, which was no less imaginative because 


it was also intelligible. The modern conception of the artist, as expressed by 


[ 209 ] 


Chinese Painting 


Bergson, that he must attempt to achieve an emotional union with his object, 
that he must “enlarge his perception without trying to rise above it,”* would 
have seemed to Li Lung-mien so much delusion, a mere playing with words, 
and a complete failure to realize the very function of art. For art to Li Lung- 
mien manifestly meant one thing: it meant the deliberate imposition of an 
ancient Confucian sense of form and order upon all the emotional stimuli, 
whether Taoist or Buddhist or strictly Confucian; and his harmony with the 
object consisted in the deepest possible understanding from without, not in 
a subjective reading into the object of the human emotional states. 

It is a mark of Li’s intellectuality that there is about his work a distinct- 
ness of line and composition, an utter clarity, such as only the unmystical 
type of mind can achieve. Here is no blurring of objects or of outline, but 
all forms are fully revealed, bathed in the bright sunshine of a complete per- 
ception. The tactile qualities of such an art are necessarily highly developed, 
and the impression of wholeness is so intense, that we are aware of an amaz- 
ing spatial reality in all figures and forms, of the back of an object’as well as 
of the face it presents to view. The element of the undefined is nowhere in 
his art permitted to exist, and even in the treatment of the supernatural he 
does not admit a twilight zone of realization. Thus and thus only did it come 
about that Li Lung-mien’s pictures are above all things distinguished for their 
intelligent content, for weaving into a superb unity so many different influ- 
ences that kept their own vitality without destroying his. 

Such intellectualism was no prerogative of the Sung dynasty, much less 
of Li Lung-mien; it was, as the outline of their objective plastic inspirations 
attempted to show, essentially the characteristic of all Chinese art; but such 
was the amalgamation of thought in the Sung dynasty that this phase of their 


"See ‘‘ Belphegor,’’ by Benda, in The Dial for September, 1920. 


Rech tennd 


The Art of Li Lung-Muien 


mental dispositions was sharply emphasized, and Lung-mien, as one of the 
deepest thinkers of that period, illustrates in a most marked degree what such 


a tendency could achieve. 


XV 
Or the purely Confucian subjects, the only one that has so far come down 
to us is a copy of the famous “Relations between Emperors and their Sub- 


991 


jects,”’* the content of which has been discussed in detail in a previous chap- 
ter.””* This painting ,now in the Meyer collection, is not an original by Li Lung- 
mien; though the lines are very fine, they have by no means the life and force 
which Li’s own work invariably possesses. However, it is an excellent copy 
and a faithful one, for the arrangement of the compositions corresponds in 
minutest detail with the careful description given in the catalogue. For these 
reasons we may be confident that this painting is close to the original in spirit, 
and that it gives us an adequate idea of Li’s style in the treatment of such his- 
torical subjects. 

The first impression of these figures and their lovely draperies clearly con- 
firms the opinion of the Chinese critics that Li Lung-mien looks back for his 
prime inspiration to the great masters of antiquity. There is not so much asa 
trace of foreign influence in this conception of beauty ; in its reticence of ges- 
ture, its calculated economy of line, its condensation of form, its utter contempt 
for all the mere prettiness of things, it conveys exactly the same Confucian 
atmosphere that is found in all Chinese figure paintings, but which can be ap- 
preciated in its purest form in those very earliest masters whom Li himself so 
venerated. 


It is the very resemblance of Li’s art to that of these primitive painters 


*See Category II, No. 8. *See pages 65-67. 


Receh 


Chinese Painting 


which immediately forces his differences upon our attention. The emperors 
of Lu T’an-wei never seem so near and real to us as do these emperors of 
Li Lung-mien. In the early representations of the country’s rulers, we feel 
the majesty and sanctity of that holy office, as well as the dignity with which 
it was ever surrounded, but the emperors remain types that suggest suitable 
characteristics, and their lineaments, their very positions, are often as like as 
two peas. Not so the emperors of Li Lung-mien. These are thoughtful and 
carefully differentiated individuals, who arouse a personal interest and a per- 
sonal sympathy. Even their imperial quality becomes an emanation of the 
personality rather than an effect produced by means of royal accoutrements 
and a court environment. The attendants have undergone the same individ- 
ualizing process. Instead of suggesting, through their mere garb, the position 
which they hold, they have become equally distinctive people, often faithful 
representations of the descriptions which history had left of their characters 
and personal appearances. 

Not only have these emperors and their subjects become individuals rather 
than types; several of them show decided traces of humor! This surely is a 
departure from the sober world of a Ku K’ai-chih! The humorous passages, 
to be sure, are delicately suggested, and sometimes need an understanding 
of the text that is inserted between the pictures, to bring them out, but they 
serve as an almost constant undercurrent which enlivens considerably the 


action of an otherwise typically ponderous Confucian theme. 


XVI 
Tix flow of gentle amusement which Li Lung-mien permits himself in his- 


torical painting becomes at times the broadest kind of satire when he treats 


[ 212 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


the Buddhistic subjects. In fact, the finer these pictures appear from a plastic 
point of view, the keener is the humor with which the Lohans pose and ges- 
ture. Some of these undated Buddhist paintings can almost be placed in their 
proper sequence because Li’s artistic ability seems visibly to grow with his 
sense of the ridiculous. In the ‘‘ Twelve Lohans,” which was too fine to be 
successfully reproduced, and in the ‘Sixteen Lohans,” both paintings in the 
Meyer collection, he not only takes pleasure in depicting the jollity of his less 
solemn-minded subjects, but is obviously poking fun at those who insist upon 
taking themselves seriously. In these paintings, clearly the products of his full 
maturity, reverence is replaced with irony, an attitude that is quite unknown 
in the works of any earlier Buddhist master. 

Some of the Lohan portraits, the conceptions, no doubt, of more youthful 
years, convey none of this critical quality. The earlier Lohans, of which there 
are several scrolls in the Freer collection, are lovelier, more emotionally felt, 
in robes whose folds are as liquid as the waves that are gently swelling be- 
neath their feet. In these tenderer conceptions there is also the love of an elabo- 
rately ornamental minutiae that could only have been executed by a young 
artist, who cannot resist the proud and joyous display of an unparalleled tech- 
nical skill. In Mr. Freer’s famous album’ and in my late scroll of ‘“ Sixteen Lo- 
hans,” this love for the exhibition of mere ornamentation has spent itself, and 
the artist’s efforts are concentrated upon caricature in the finest sense of that 
term. In these drawings, surface and structure are so perfectly welded together 
that all detail is swept away; and in spite of their humor, these figures are posi- 
tively fearsome in the hardness of intellectual and plastic concentration which 
they imply. The folds of their kashayas have lost the youthful softness and 


‘Not an original painting but a good copy and therefore equally useful as a basis of discussion. 


* See illustrations, Nos. 16 to 20. 


[21357] 


Chinese Painting 


sweep, and have been reduced to the lowest terms of lineal simplicity. The dif- 
ference between theGreek mentality and that of Confucian China may be seen 
in the opulent lines of Greece’s gracefully draped peplums, and the sobriety, 
the restraint of line which Li Lung-mien evolves from the same garments. 
Complete reality, moreover, is maintained in these paintings, in spite of the 
use of purely abstract form. The heads of these Lohans, the drawing of their 
arms, legs, and feet, are as untrue to actuality as the most distorted cubist pic- 
ture; but the suggestion of reality is preserved through fineness of propor- 
tions and forms, through the equilibrium of the figures as a whole, thus giving 
no offense, as the modern paintings so often do, to the sense of the normal. 
The sea tosses beneath their feet, sometimes jaggedly, sometimes with a 
massive amplitude, but always convincingly. The rhythm of the forms evolved 
from the wave-motions is infinitely varied without ever losing its watery 
quality, and the harmony which it establishes with the related or contrasted 
rhythm of the Lohan’s robes is of a perfection that only our most beautiful 


music can equal. 


XVII 
Tue ever growing sense of irony in Li Lung-mien’s Buddhistic paintings 
was obviously not a religious influence, nor was the lighter humor of ‘‘ The 
Relations between Emperors and their Subjects”’ Confucian in its origin. To 
be amused at or with one’s divinities, to feel them as vulnerable individuali- 
ties rather than as long-eared demigods, naturally implies a loss of religious 
atmosphere, just as the humanizing of the emperors implies the sacrifice of 
the rigidly impersonal Confucian atmosphere. The Confucian world as it is 
furnished forth in its pictorial representations was staid, beautiful, and even 


majestic, but it was a highly serious affair. Its men and women moved with a 


[ 214 ] 


OPES i RAMs ER 


Chinese pag? 


sweep, and have been reduced to the lowest terms of lineal simplicitys‘@ ; 
ference between theGreek mentality and that of Confucian China mnay be ¢ 
in the opulent inet rte gaey te ae ee sobriet 
the restraint of line which Li Lung-mien evolves from the same garme! 
Complete reality, moreover, is maintained in these ERP. ing 
use of purely abstract form. The heads of these Lohans, the d 
arms, legs, and feet, are as untrue to actuality as the most d 
ture; but the suggestion of reality is preserved through fineness 
tions and forms, through the equilibrium of the figures as a whole, 
no offense, as the modern paintings so often do, to the sense as | 
- The sea tosses beneath their feet, sometimes jaggedly, somet 
massive amplitude, but always. convincingly. The rhythm of the fc 
from the wave-motions is infinitely varied without ever los a at 
quality, and the harmony which it establishes with the related 0 ont 
rhythm of the Lohan’s robes is of a perfection that only our I nea 


music can equal. gay wo wow .amaHol 


(1VK ATAIT) 
XVII : 
‘Tue ever growing sense of irony in Li Lung-mien’s Buddhistic pai 


was obviously not a religious influence, nor was the ih 
Relations between Emperors and their Subjects” Confucian im | its 01 igi 
be amused at or with one’s divinities, to feel them as vulnerabl ble | 
ties rather than as long-eared demigods, naturally implies a 7 
atmosphere, just as the humanizing of the emperors implies the e 8 
the rigidly impersonal Confucian atmosphere. The ees el 
furnished forth in its pictorial representations. was staid, 
majestic, but it was a highly serious affair. Its men and wail n 


[ 214 J 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


serene dignity that tempts a lesser mortal to wonder what happened to these 
unruffled exteriors when life was depressing or ecstatic, annoying or amusing. 

To the true Confucian, life never seems to have been any of these things; 
and it is to Taoism that we must look, whether in Chinese life, its literature, 
or its pictorial arts, for all the small delights and tortures of existence. It is 
in a Taoist influence that we must likewise seek for the explanation of Li 
Lung-mien’s ever present sense of the playful side of life, of the ridiculous, of 
the witty, and of the satirical. Indeed, one need only think of the overpower- 
ing solemnity of the Confucian routine in order to acquire a lively fellow- 
feeling for that long line of deliciously human spirits that deserted the sacred 
halls of ceremony for the untrammelled wilds where they could loll about or — 
write poetry, become ribald or intoxicated, at their leisure. Thus, when Li per- 
mits himself, in that most augustly Confucian set of illustrations, “The Re- 
lations between Emperors and their Subjects,” to portray the drunken Gen- 
eral Shan Chien being laughed at by village children, or when he brings out 
the worldly side of the Lohans together with their foibles and the mock- 
heroic side of their characters, it is the Taoist in him that insists upon rescuing 
his art from the over-solemn and the dully religious. 

Though Li Lung-mien’s humor shows that he had no attitude of servility 
toward his various artistic and philosophic traditions, it shows also that he had 
no cynicism. Its kindly criticisms, the very beauty of his sly rebukes, per- 
suade the observer that in this Sung eclecticism there was neither surrender 
nor contempt. Often as we may find Lung-mien laughing at the pomp of Con- 
fucian emperors or the sacredness of Buddhist deities, there is always a will- 
ingness to recognize the worth in both these systems, and even in his irony, 
there is a gentleness and a benign comprehension that rob his strongest cari- 


catures of any hint of bitterness. 


[ 215 ] 


Chinese Painting 


It is also due to Li Lung-mien’s Taoistic independence of mind that we 
owe the individualizing of his emperors and Lohans, as well as his freshness 
of attitude toward all the old Buddhistic paraphernalia of ritualism, posture, 
and decoration. While adhering to all the rules of type for his depictions of 
Buddhist immortals, Lung-mien was quite original in his presentation of these 
worthies; for in most cases we find no mention in the art literature, nor has 
our experience made us aware of any precedence for many of the groupings. 
The Hua Chi’ says that “in making his Buddhist images he insisted upon 
the fantastic and original in order to startle people, and yet he never lost his 
standard of artistic excellence. Once he depicted a Kuan-yin whose girdle 
floated behind her more than one and a half times her own length. He also 
made a Kuan-yin reclining on a rock, a composition probably never seen 
before. Again, he seated a Kuan-yin cross-legged in a comfortable attitude 
with hands joined together, giving the appearance of great ease. Li Kung- 
lin said that the world thought one could not sit in this prescribed man- 
ner and be comfortable, but that poise was the result of a mental and not of 
a physical attitude. Thus we see that a high-minded man and penetrating 


scholar, no matter how he does a thing, can always succeed.”’ 


XVIII 
Lt carried his originality to the point of introducing into the Buddhist paint- 
ings new and extraordinary instruments, and animals whose resemblance to 
some of the small Han or earlier bronzes indicates that he felt no hesitation 
in mingling freely the different sources of Sung culture. Frequently he in- 
troduces Taoist figures into his Buddhist processions, as well as Taoist sym- 


Chap, pa2e: 


[ 216 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


bols of all sorts, especially those of distinctly decorative value. The T’ang 
artists would not have done this, not only because they felt the walls which 
still existed between the three schools of thought, but because, in the case of 
the classic influences, they had not the scholarship and the familiarity with 
the antique which Li Lung-mien possessed. Thus his Buddhist as well as his 
Taoist paintings were enriched in variety and expressiveness beyond those 
of his predecessors by the broader reach of his interests and the additional 
artistic training which these strictly Confucian studies brought with them. 
The effect upon the Sung scholars of the classic revival was not narrowing, 
but, added to the philosophical researches of Taoism and Buddhism, it acted 
upon their imaginations as did the newly discovered humanistic studies upon 
Italy of the fourteenth century and upon Germany of the fifteenth century. For 
the Sung period achieved at the same time the artistic impetus of the Italian 
Renaissance and the freeing intellectual stimulus that preceded the German 
Reformation. As Europe broke away from the fetters of Catholicism, so China 
had broken away from the mental restraints of Buddhism.Since the Chinese had 
been less enslaved, their emancipation was less violent, less bitter; and, instead 
of the hatreds and the harsh recriminations of the Reformation, we have good- 
natured satires; instead of the triumph of a rival faith of equal intolerance and 
exclusiveness, we have the synthetic mentality of a Li Lung-mien that dared to 
draw, from any source, whatever seemed to have permanent human values. 
Li Lung-mien is the only Sung scholar who expressed this Renaissance 
artistically in all its different aspects. To think that his breadth and penetra- 
tion were general characteristics of the artists of this period would be to rob 
him of his glory. Buddhist art in Li’s time was moribund, Just as great Con- 
fucian figure painting was also a thing of the past; but Li, through his under- 


standing and zeal for all national influences, made both these arts live again. 


(eco cree] 


Chinese Painting 


Sung painting was concentrated almost exclusively on landscape; and Li’s 
many sided artistic interests were only possible, in such an era, because of the 
fine scholarship that carried him into all sorts of new fields of inquiry. For 
he was the most learned of all Chinese painters, not excepting the erudite 
T’ang poet-painter, Wang Wei. Most Chinese painters were, and necessarily 
had to be, well educated; but Li was one of China’s really brilliant and origi- 
nal intellects, a man whose aim to stand beside the ancient sages in scholar- 
ship was fully realized. He was able to gather into his work all the intel- 
lectual currents of his age as no other painter could, because he was a part 
of them, because he was in sympathy with, and had helped to create, the 
catholic atmosphere which his art expressed. 

If Taoism was so powerful a stimulus with Lung-mien as to bring the 
characters and facial expressions of his Lohans from the typical to the indi- 
vidual, it naturally arouses a curiosity as to the style that he used in so defi- 
nitely Taoist an art as landscape painting. If we turn to the section in the 
catalogue’ which lists these subjects, it is immediately notable that we find 
very few of those strictly Taoist landscape subjects in which the importance 
of humanity is but lightly indicated or entirely suppressed; and of these few 
some were made as literal maps, such as the famous scroll of the River Shu ;’ 
others were copies made because the originals were the work of such great 
landscape painters as Wang Wei’ or Li Chao-tao;* and some of the original 
subjects were chosen because the names of historical personages were at- 
tached to the scene.* Nor could his artistic piety fail to express itself in the 
depiction of his own homestead,’ a subject made sacred to all Chinese painters 
Category V. 


* Ibid., No. 16. Now in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. 
* Ibid., No. 12. *Ibid., No. 10. *Ibid., Nos. 5, 8, 19. *Ibid., No. 14. 


[ 218 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 
by the famous Wang-Ch’uan T’u of Wang Wei.’ In other words, the interest 


is practical, or it is preponderantly traditional, both Confucian attitudes; and 
the number of such purely Taoist subjects is comparatively small, even if we 
add the sixth category, which lists the “‘ Flowers and Birds.” In addition, Li 
has painted magnificent panoramas as backgrounds for many of his figure 
paintings, both Buddhist and Confucian. Though he was not sufficiently Tao- 
istic to depict pure landscape, he was too much soto resist it as a setting for his 
figure paintings, a point in which he departs radically from Confucian tradi- 
tion, and also from that of Buddhist art, so far as we know it. We hear, to be 
sure, that Wu Tao-tzt painted splendid landscapes for some of his Buddhist 
subjects, but so far as his works are known through the many later copies 
that still survive, they furnish no precedent for so magnificent a mingling of 
elaborate landscape and figure painting as, for example, ‘The White Lotus 
Club.”* Even for this painting Li Lung-mien may possibly have had older 
models on which to base his composition, but thus far no earlier master has. 
been discovered who ventured upon so severe a test of his abilityin the differ- 


ent domains of Chinese pictorial expression. 


XIX 
Is none of Li Lung-mien’s pictures, or copies of pictures, that has come down 


to us, can his art in all its diversity be better studied than in this painting of 


“Category V, No. 12. 


* See illustrations, plates Nos. 3-14. This painting, together with Mr. Freer’s famous Shu River Scroll, his 
Album of Lohans,and my copy of ‘‘ Laotzti Delivering the Tao Té Ching,’ are the only paintings by Li 
Lung-mien of whose authenticity we can be reasonably certain. There are several other paintings in the 
Freer collection, as well as in my own group, which are probably Li Lung-mien’s work; but we cannot be 
as sure of these as of the four works mentioned above. For discussion of the subject of ‘* The White Lotus 
Club,’ see page 93. ° 


[ 219 | 


Chinese Painting 
“The White Lotus Club”; for whether it be in landscape, figure painting, 


or architecture, he never has excelled, never could have excelled, the per- 
fection of this scroll. The exquisite forms that are clothed in a semblance to 
trees and rocks and water constitute a composition whose structural intel- 
lectualization could be carried no further. In spite of such abstraction, for no 
modern cubist ever was more abstract, representation is never sacrificed; but 
all the natural phenomena have lost the suggestion of the specific or indi- 
vidual thing, and become symbols, as our Chinese writer expressed it, of 
the “true and the good.’’ Even the clouds are not mere clouds, but the most 
careful studies in volume. All impulsive Taoist spontaneity, such as can be 
found as an illuminating contrast in the landscapes of Li’s contemporary Mi 
Fei, is absent, and in its place we find such mastery of medium and of con- 
tent, such splendor of imagination combined with such detachment and con- 
trol, that we are made to feel as if we were looking not at a landscape but 
at eternity and infinity stated in terms of the visible. 

The mingling of Northern and Southern traditions, and the welding of both 
into a noble unity, is one of the most interesting features of this masterpiece. 
The river-bank, the way in which the points of land disappear into the water, 
the leafless trees, are all in the manner of Wang Wei, but the evergreens 
and heavy foliage,the masses of rock, the distant pointed peaks and the superb 
convolutions of the cloud forms, are reminiscent of Li Ssu-hsiin, and strictly 
academic. The realism of Wang Wei, the feeling he gives one of painting a 
specific thing, is lost even when his techniques are used; but as compensa- 
tion, Li Lung-mien has incorporated into the abstract classic treatment of the 
rock masses, which is taken bodily from Li Sst-hsiin, the very surfaces and 
the layer-like, calligraphic structure which are first found perfected in the 


paintings of Wang Wei and his school. 
[ 220 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


In such close interweaving of different styles* does Li’s work illustrate the 
fantastic liberality and freedom that characterize Sung Confucianism. A pre- 
dominantly Taoist temperament, like that of Mi Fei, still felt its hostility to 
the Academy so keenly that it was forced to work out its own techniques. 
Like our western artists, Mi Fei spent much of his aesthetic impulse in pre- 
occupation with medium, whereas Li’s Confucian mentality felt at liberty to 
use, and actually did use in “The White Lotus Club,” all the great technical 
achievements that ages of research had evolved. Mi Fei, in reality, was not 
more free of his environment and heritage, and the struggle against them, 
of which he is, to be sure, an extreme example, defined and limited his effec- 
tiveness; whereas Li Lung-mien, unhampered by the problem of individual- 
ism, could reserve his energies for the thing he had to say, and could draw 
upon unlimited resources for the perfect manner of its saying. For this rea- 
son a picture like ““The White Lotus Club” contains every current of Chi- 
nese culture flowing peacefully together to form a single mighty stream, and 
represents the culmination of the classic trend in Chinese pictorial art. 

An analysis of the various plastic influences in this painting gives at the 
same time a history of Chinese art and a mental picture of Lung-mien. Though 
Taoist techniques are used, the treatment of the landscape lifts all the hered- 
itary factors to the typical and abstract. The Lohan figure paintings, we found, 
were humanized and individualized; but in contrast we now discover that his 
landscape is elevated from individualism to a superb formula. Li’s Taoism still 
lives in the power and originality of that formula; but if ever there existed 


in China such a thing as Confucianized landscape painting, in the sense that 


* The origin of these techniques is still open to much difference of opinion owing to the lack of great num- 
bers of early paintings or good copies. Moreover, the matter can be discussed with clarity only before the 
objects; but the few points I mention may serve to show how almost inextricably the two great landscape 
schools of China had been mingled by the Sung painters. 


[ 201 | 


Chinese Painting 


the traditional and stylistic elements predominate, no work is nearer to this 
impersonal perfection than this painting by Li Lung-mien. As if to keep in har- 
mony with this quality in the landscape, the figure painting and the archi- 
tecture, though the subject is Buddhist, are so Confucian in their plasticity 
that, were it not for external details, both might appear in some pre-T’ang 
painting without being felt as anachronistic from the aesthetic point of view. 
The restrained and solemnly rhythmical line in the grouping of the fig- 
ures, the gentle dignity and simplicity of their draperies, are much more rem- 
iniscent of Ku K’ai-chih than of the more expansive styles of Wu Tao-tzu 
and his school, or of the impressionistic treatment of Taoist figure paintings. 
It is to be expected that, in the drawing of the scholar groups, the techni- 
cal traditions established by Ku K’ai-chih would be followed; but even in the 
various little figures of Buddhist and Taoist origin that are so beautifully 
scattered through the landscape, all sense of anything but a classic rhythm 
has been eliminated. Nor can a touch of the foreign atmosphere, so sought 
after in the T’ang Buddhist paintings, be found here. Even the humorous ele- 
ment, which Li’s Taoist nature could not refrain from introducing in most 
of his Buddhist subjects, is entirely omitted, and in its stead is the seriousness 
and stateliness of the classic and impressive side of his nature. The surface 
lines as well as the planes and volumes of these figures are indigenous in 


character and attuned to the rigorous demands of a Confucian plasticity. 


XX 
Tue architecture of ‘The White Lotus Club” is another example of how 
Buddhist subjects were subdued to the classic technique. The dream-temple 


which rises from the clouds, as well as its Nirvana-like repetition at the end 


[ 222 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


of the scroll, is Buddhist in structure, but the rendering of the roof-lines and 
pillars, as well as that of the minute decorative notes that ornament the superb 
balustrades, could have been done with such precision and distinction only by an 
artist who had been trained in the classic school of Chinese architectural paint- 
ing. Of this art, the technical history goes straight back to the Han stones, and 
to the early representations of the sumptuous Han palaces in which the T’ang 
and even previous painters fairly revelled. Thus when Li paints architecture, 
whether it be, as here,a Buddhist temple, or a purely imaginary palace such as 
the “Cassia Hall and Epidendrum Palace,’’* the unearthly fineness of line, the 
majesty and splendor of contour,as well as the sweep of the imagination which 
the lofty beauty of these buildings imply, are each the heritage from a remote 
ancestry that had in reality enjoyed such beauteous and magnificent abodes. 

There is,in addition to the ancient stateliness of Li Lung-mien’s architecure, 
another subtle quality that it contains, which is again peculiarly the expression 
of his own exquisite nature. This quality I can only define by saying that all 
the architectural features, even the lesser articles of use, are singularly sen- 
tient and alive. The divan upon which Laotzi sits as he hands the Tao Té Ching 
to his reverent disciple, as well as the superb table which stands by his side,’ 
the latticed structure about the sacred tree in ‘The White Lotus Club”’ or 
any of the little pavilions and bridges that vary its scenery so graciously, all 
are of such superb line and proportion that they become something infinitely 
greater than the structures which they represent. They are as significant, as 
highly vitalized, as any of the human figures. They are not mere appurte- 
nances, but the embodiment of that cultivated consideration for the smallest 


details of life, and of that deeply felt sense of equilibrium, which I have tried 


*In the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. Too fine for reproduction. 


*See illustrations, No. 15. *See illustrations, Nos. 3-14. 


[ 223 | 


Chinese Painting 


to bring out again and again as the distinctive characteristic of the Chinese, 
and especially of the Confucian mentality. So developed was this respect for 
the details of living, that a minute and loving consideration was expended 
upon every phase of their existences. It is this fineness of mind, this need to 
express his feeling for a highly sensitized balance, not only in his entire com- 
position but in the least of its parts, that distinguishes Li Lung-mien even 


among a whole race of artistic and exquisite natures. 


XXI 
Tus the entire painting, its landscape, its figures, its architecture, though 
enriched by Taoist forms and Buddhist fancies, is held together by the classic 
aesthetic sense that dominates them all. In this way a unity of style is achieved, 
a perfect welding of the figures to their background. The great massive 
cliffs, the intertwining clouds and river, the groups of scholars, the Buddhist 
fairies, the no less ethereal lotuses, all are seen as an impressive whole and as 
if freed from every human coarseness and limitation. It is the sublimation of 
the earthly and transitory into the eternal and immutable. This painting in its 
impersonal splendor, in its complete intellectualization of all the emotional dis- 
coveries of Taoist and Buddhist art, represents a climax of the intertwining of 
the three great plastic evolutions of China. It illustrates what the Confucian tra- 
ditionalizing process could make of all the great themes, its own, of the Tao, 
of the images of Buddhist imagination. It is sublime because all of Chinese cul- 
tural and aesthetic history, at its finest,is concentrated and plastically conveyed 
in its vital lines and forms and spaces. It is a monument to the Chinese race as 
well as to the man who painted it, but especially is it a tribute to the serene and 


objective vision of that ancient classicism which made them both so great. 


[ 224 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


XXII 

Tuere may be some danger that my description of Sung art and the Sung 
mentality will lead the reader to think of it as a problem in addition, the mere 
heaping up of different art forms and different ideas. This is not what I 
would imply, nor would the unity of thought and expression in such a pic- 
ture as “The White Lotus Club” permit of such an analysis. The art of the 
Sung classicist differed from pure Confucian art not alone through such surface 
variations as the acquisition of new themes. The broadening of the horizon 
between the fourth and the eleventh centuries had created important modifi- 
cations of Confucian living and thinking, and these in turn had evolved the 
new plasticity. 

Though the relationship of the life and thought of the two periods has, I 
hope, been made clear by this time, that very resemblance brings out their 
two main differences, which can nowhere be more clearly discerned than in 
_ the paintings of Li Lung-mien. 

Let us take, for example, that atmosphere of the exquisite, one could almost 
say the precious, which has already been singled out in the discussion of Li 
Lung-mien’s architecture. This quality ,even if we think of the figure paintings, 
is nearer in feeling to Confucian art than to the powerful hybrids of T’ang, and 
again relates our artist to paintings like those of Ku K’ai-chih, rather than 
to those of Wu Tao-tzt and his followers. It indicates clearly the surviving 
influence of the aristocratic origin of Confucian art. 

For the Confucian paintings, like the early jades and other art objects, 
were frankly the products of a feeling for rank, of a desire to express the quasi- 
religious conception which they held concerning the necessity and beauty of 
their social structure. In the Sung dynasty, however, though a Confucian or- 


ganization existed, rank was no longer a matter of political position. It is said 


[ 225 J] 


Chinese Painting 


of Li Lung-mien that he avoided worldly eminence, but that he sought the 
company of the cultured, and a complete shift of interest from the social to 
the mental relationships is evidenced as clearly in his art as in his life. A thou- 
sand years of scholarship and official examinations, together with the Taoist 
stimulus to the cultivation of the arts and letters, had transformed the an- 
cient Chinese political state into a hierarchy of the mind, but in this new spir- 
itual kingdom the feeling for rank was no less clearly defined. It has been 
recounted of Li Lung-mien that he was a master at conveying in a few strokes 
the position in life of his subjects, not, however, as the ancients had done, 
through the indication of suitable garments, but by making outward the real 
inwardness of their beings. Just as classic Confucian art portrayed all the deli- 
cate intricacies of a highly developed social structure, so Li Lung-mien’s art 
conveys the subtler complexities of a highly developed intelligencia. No longer 
does he concern himself with the definition of caste and of social relationships, 
but instead, nobility of the heart and the interplay of the sensibilities become 
the basis of this new Confucian plasticity. Though the rhythm of his line is 
related to that of the earliest men, it has an atmosphere of the non-material, 
an emphasis of psychology, a reach toward a more intimate comprehension 
of human ties and loyalties, which the earlier depictions of a simpler society 
could not and did not contain. 

The feeling thus becomes developed for the individual rather than for the 
class mentality. This is the second fundamental point of difference from early 
Confucian art,and here again we find a precious remnant of the Taoist struggle. 
His paintings are not for these reasons plastically finer than those of his men- 
tally less complicated predecessors, for their art impetus was every bit as intense 
as his; but his content is different, more elusive, more profound, and nearer in 


character, infinitely nearer, to our no less psychologically aware modernity. 


[ 226 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


It is these two qualities of the spiritual and the individual which gave such 
deep significance to Li Lung-mien’s work, and lent such a different feeling 
to his form and line from that of his fellow-Confucians. It is this profound 
understanding of human nature, of human aspirations, and of the finest human 
needs, which makes Li Lung-mien stand out above all the other painters of 
China. Merely from the aesthetic point of view, one might place beside him 
any of the old masters; but for sheer wisdom, and the individual, quivering, 
sensitive life-quality which it lent to his art, he is unique in the history of Chi- 
nese painting. Though he inherited his subjects, and formed his style on that 
of his classical predecessors, both were so illuminated by his powerful and 
highly individual intelligence that one cannot behold so much as an inch of 
his line without recognizing it as his. At times it has the thunderous force of 
mountain torrents, at times it flickers with a flame-like grace, but always it is 
guided by a combination of mind and skill that leaves even the most sensitive 
of plastic imaginations nothing to wish for. This depth of vision and the sever- 
ity of style, crowded with significance, which it created, make it impossible 
that Li Lung-mien should ever have the popularity, say of Raphael’s mild- 
eyed Madonnas; but whoever loves brave thinking —the disciplined intellec- 
tualism and the triumphant objectivity of China at its broadest and best —and 
all those who are haunted by the search for the exquisite and the pure, these 
spirits will find in Li Lung-mien’s art a refuge, a consolation, and a reward 
such as life will but rarely offer them. 

Li Lung-mien’s lesser importance lies in this, that he was technically as well 
as mentally an eclectic, that he preserved for us, without diminishing their 
value, practically all of the great art traditions of China. He summed up its aes- 
thetic history, just as the Sung dynasty summed up its intellectual history. The 


pictorial products of the early fourth to sixth centuries are very close to him, 


22ers 


Chinese Painting 


the T’ang dynasty is worthily reflected, and even the unique delicacy of the 
ancient arts with which he loved to surround himself is likewise suggested, 
not only in his work, but in the fastidious nicety of the materials which he 
preferred to use. He has not quite the majesty of the first Confucians, because 
the feeling of awe was not possible to so critical an age; nor can he make the 
passionate appeal of the Chin Taoists or the T’ang Buddhists, since he had 
only an historical appreciation of the things for which those men had lived and 
died. But if none of the work of the early Chinese painters had come down 
to us, we should still be able to judge the force and beauty of their inspiration, 
as well as its manifold directions, from the all but unrivalled splendor of the 
art of Li Lung-mien. 

If this achievement of an impersonal comprehensiveness was perfection, 
it contained for that very reason the seed of decay and death. It is the final 
proof of the completeness of Li’s Confucianism that it was sterile. In spite of 
the beauty of his style and the breadth of his interests, he founded no new 
traditions, made no great new contribution that followers could develop. The 
Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u declares that he founded an entirely new school, but if 
this be so, the worthy pupils of this great teacher have not yet come to light. 
Nor will they. For Li Lung-mien was the plastic completion, the final state- 
ment in purely Chinese terms, of all their art motifs, whether indigenous or 
foreign. He spoke the last word, and there followed not even so much as a 


clear echo. 


XXIII 
Waar is perhaps most astonishing in this utter silence that follows upon Li’s 
loud challenge to the art world of China, is the failure of any painter to con- 


tinue worthily Li Lung-mien’s depiction of the horse. Ancient as was this art 


[ 228 ] 


. - — Lee (re yet nu ek yey” eh Ne NTR oN = ly ater FIRS 
_ er : , 5 al - be » : . \ q - oo hs is 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


in China, no one had ever raised it to the freedom, the positive abandon of 
expression which was reached by his brush in the swift delineation of mounted 
archers, of wild horses dashing freely about the plains, of Tartars performing 
the most extraordinary feats for the delectation of the emperors. We know 
but three of Li Lung-mien’s horse paintings, one of which is illustrated,’ and 
two others which are in the Freer collection at the Smithsonian Institution; 
of these we cannot say positively that they are the work of the master, but 
even if they are copies, they indicate such a high degree of excellence, that 
it is difficult to understand why they did not supplant the traditions of Han 


_ Kan with a new and much more vigorous influence. 


For between the work of these two painters there can be but one choice. If 
there is any field in which Lung-mien transeends all his fellow-artists, it is in 
this one. Even among the Chinese critics there is a wnanimity of opinion on this 
question. The Hua Chi gives its decision * thus: His horses looked like flying 
dragons, and their coats had the qvabrag@- 2-0 iy} 


were beautifully decorated 


: and resembled those famous Han eu pin travelled a thousand leagues. 


a day and ¢weated blood. In comparison with him we feel that Chén Hung’s 


ie work is less valuable, nor is that of Han Kan remarkable beside it. Therefore 

_ the poem of Tung-p"o says: ‘Lung-mien carries in-his breast the image of a 
thousand horses. He paints not only their flesh but their very bones.’” 

ae ~ Into the solemn if magnificent Confucian processions of Han Kan, the Sung 

“painter has injected all the fire and freedom of his Taoist training and achieves 

_ thereby a variety of action such as no other horse painter ever evinced. Had 

it not been for his understanding of the merits in the more formal, classic 


; “an pla ad 2. ii concarts of sesdiunaillialinaines tetel intend dah haha, 


=n 
[ ea J] 


1 oe a a! PE Pl hk CE Ga orn ae rr. 
« ‘ 2 ey te . 4 


¢ : i” ; MA, ee = 


¢ wf 
- ‘ 
> ~ 
’ ’ 
er 
- N hh 
¥ = os 
q = % 
Le 
y i ek 
= —s~ 
i‘ 
a 
Z » 
re 
+ 
al 
4 &A 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


in China, no one had ever raised it to the freedom, the positive abandon of 
expression which was reached by his brush in the swift delineation of mounted 
archers, of wild horses dashing freely about the plains, of Tartars performing 
the most extraordinary feats for the delectation of the emperors. We know 
but three of Li Lung-mien’s horse paintings, one of which is illustrated,’ and 
two others which are in the Freer collection at the Smithsonian Institution; 
of these we cannot say positively that they are the work of the master, but 
even if they are copies, they indicate such a high degree of excellence, that 
it is difficult to understand why they did not supplant the traditions of Han 
Kan with a new and much more vigorous influence. 

For between the work of these two painters there can be but one choice. If 
there is any field in which Lung-mien transcends all his fellow-artists, it is in 
this one. Even among the Chinese critics there is a unanimity of opinion on this 
question. The Hua Chi gives its decision* thus: ‘‘ His horses looked like flying 
dragons, and their coats had the quality of jade. They were beautifully decorated 
and resembled those famous Han chargers that travelled a thousand leagues 
a day and sweated blood. In comparison with him we feel that Chén Hung’s 
work is less valuable, nor is that of Han Kan remarkable beside it. Therefore 
the poem of Tung-p’o says: ‘ Lung-mien carries in his breast the image of a 
thousand horses. He paints not only their flesh but their very bones.’”’ 

Into the solemn if magnificent Confucian processions of Han Kan, the Sung 
painter has injected all the fire and freedom of his Taoist training,and achieves 
thereby a variety of action such as no other horse painter ever evinced. Had 


it not been for his understanding of the merits in the more formal, classic 


‘In plates 1 and 2. Photographs of another of Li’s famous horse paintings may be found in the Kokka, 
No. 380. 


*Chap. 3, p. 2b. 


[ 229 ] 


Chinese Painting 


treatment, his own works might have failed of solidity, as did, for instance, 
many of the Tartar painters whose powers of observation and technique make 
their works otherwise of signal merit. Such foreigners as Hu Ch’ien, whom we 
have already mentioned, and the Prince of Tung-Tan, whom Li has copied,’ 
did superb things, but never achieved the Chinese firmness of structure. On 
the other hand, if Li had merely been another typically Confucian horse 
painter, he would no doubt have fallen into the fine, but somewhat steady and 
uninspired, cavalcades of such unoriginal followers of Han Kan as Ch’én Chii- 
chung.’ For that is how, in the main, the horse painters that follow the great 
T’ang trio, Ts’ao Pa, Chén Hung, and Han Kan, are to be divided, the one 
group being somewhat too overwhelmed by precedent, the other not quite 
alive to its value. 

Li Lung-mien, feeling deeply his classic models, appreciating the insight 
and individuality of the untrained but observing Tartar temperament, and 
above all things loving the emperor’s equine beauties as warmly as any 
western nomad ever could, evolved a style all his own, that united the dig- 
nity of ancient China to the verve and intimate knowledge of a man of the 
plains. Is this perhaps the reason, this rare combination that they show of the 
classic and the wildly romantic, this beautiful mingling of love and under- 
standing, why Li’s bounding chargers were never copied? It is said in the 
Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u that Li Lung-mien’s careful and traditional work was at 
times successfully imitated, but that his abandoned and sketchy style could 
never be approached by any one. No doubt this was so, for underneath the 
calm and controlled exterior of his Confucian demeanor, there beat a heart 
that never could be tamed, that was bound to express its love of utter free- 
dom even though it had early learned to do so in exacting forms and mea- 


* Category I, No. 14. Category IV, No. 7. *A late twelfth century artist. 


[ 230 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


sures. His Taoist impulsiveness seems to have felt no restraint, but actually 
found an inspiration, in the Confucian standards and traditions, just as a great 
poet feels an incentive rather than a burden in the stern exigencies of hismetre. 
But such natures are rare. Few are and ever will be the men who can formulate 
a great emotion without killing it, and Lung-mien’s horse paintings must ever 
remain dear to us because the ardor of the Chinese race is in them, as well as its 


formidable intellect. 


XXIV 
‘Troucs these paintings remained inimitable, the copyists were numerous, 
and because of the high prices which his pictures brought, forgeries were only 
too often attempted. Even during his own lifetime, says Lu Yu in the Lao- 
hsiieh-an Pi-chi,’ his page, named Chao Kuang, is supposed to have traced 
his line so skilfully that the best critics could not tell their work apart. The 
interesting but highly improbable story reads as follows: ‘Chao Kuang, a 
native of Ho-fei,’ was page to Li Po-shih. Whenever Po-shih began a paint- 
- ing, he would tell him to stand by his side. In the course of time, Chao Kuang 
was himself able to paint; especially skilful was he in making horse pictures 
which were almost indistinguishable from the genuine originals [ by Li Po- 
shih]. During the Chien-yen period [a.p. 1127-1130 ], he was made a pris- 
oner by the rebels,’ who, having heard of his skill in painting, tried to make 
him portray the women they were carrying off. Kuang resolutely declined 
to do this on the pretext that he could not paint, and, even at the point of the 
sword, he still refused. They therefore cut off the thumb of his right hand 
and ordered him away. The truth is that Kuang had always painted with the 
left hand. When the rebellion was over, he painted nothing but images of 


* Bk. HU, p. 4. * Lu-chou. * The Golden Tartars. 


2st 


Chinese Painting 


Kuan-yin Ta-shih* and died after a few years. At present, the pictures of 
Kuan-yin, alleged to have been done by Po-shih, are, from what I have seen 
in the collections of scholars and officials, most of them from the brush of 
Kuang.” 

Of this man’s paintings I have not been able to identify any specimens; but 
that this story may be discounted is proved by the fact that another critic, 
Yeh Méng-té,’ praises equally highly the work of a copyist named Fan-lung, 
whose attempts to do a Li Lung-mien may be judged by a scroll now in the 
Freer collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Fan-lung uses the same tech- 
niques and compositions as does Lung-mien, but the decadent and sickening 
quality of his line, the utterly unworthy character of his workmanship, prove 
once more how unreliable the statements of the Chinese critics can be. 

In fact, Mi Fei, who is always an impatient but a very independent and 
discerning critic, scofts at the idea of confusing Lung-mien’s work with that 
of his pupils. In the Hua Shih, as quoted by the Shu-hua-p’u,’ he says: “‘ The 
painting by Li Kung-lin in my possession, entitled ‘The Heavenly King,’ al- 
though charming, is trifling, weak, and lacking in style. As a matter of fact, 
it was done by his pupils. The paintings [of Kung-lin ] collected by the nobil- 
ity are usually of this class.” 

The extent to which Lung-mien’s art was a climax in the Chinese pictorial 
development is demonstrated not only by the fact that he failed to establish 
any new traditions, but by the even more significant fact that none of his suc- 
cessors can be considered his equal in a single branch of artistic expression. — 


He was the last great figure painter, the only man in the whole Sung galaxy 


* Kuan-yin, the Great Scholar. The repetition of this story 4 propos of one of Li’s disciples emphasizes its 
improbability in either case. 


* See Category II, No. 50. * Chap. 96, p. 66 b. 


[ 232 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


of artists who in this respect can be measured by the standards of the ancients; 
he was also the last painter of landscape in the classic style, nor can the land- 
scapes in the then traditionalized Taoist manner which made the fame of the 
Southern Sung period be said to equal those of Li Lung-mien. After him there 
was nothing but pure formula, splendid at times, as in the work of Hsia Kuei 
and Ma Yiian, but not intellectually as powerful, not as free and varied in 
the use of abstract form as are the works of Li Lung-mien. Both these later 
masters have in their structures and techniques something repetitional, some- 
thing that is routine rather than formula, a monotony, in short, of which Lung- 
mien was never guilty. Taoism had gone completely to the wall, except as its 
inventions still lived in Confucian schematizations. Even in these we already 
sense the flattening of planes, and a certain obviousness of composition, that 
indicate the running down of the Confucian machinery, and point propheti- 
cally to the mechanical productions of Yuan and Ming. Had Li Lung-mien 
found a new theme, there would have been followers to retell it; but since 
he merely repeated in a perfected plasticity the sagas and experiences of his 
race, there could be no sequel to his thought or to his form. And there was 


none. 


XXV 
Tuover Li Lung-mien’s use of ink was so subtle as to lend to his art an 
infinite variation in tone, color, in the commonly accepted sense of the word, 
is but sparingly encountered in his work. The paintings that we know, with 
the exception of “The Return of Tao Yiian-ming,”’ which has every mark 
of being a copy of some T’ang master, are done with ink in an outline which 
the critics, because of its strength, term his ‘‘iron wire” style. In these out- 


line paintings colors are not often used, except in some work done late in life, 


Bs eg 


Chinese Painting 


of which one beautiful example has come down to us,’ that shows delicate 
flesh-tinting and slight washes of faint color discreetly distributed through- 
out the composition. The hasty assertion of the Chinese critics that Lung- 
mien used color only when copying a colored painting, is not reliable, for Mi 
Fei expressly tells us that “The Gathering in a Western Garden,’”* which, 
from the contemporary nature of its subject, was unquestionably an original, 
was done in the brilliantly colorful style of Li Chao-tao. If he did one such 
painting, he may have done more. The catalogue also speaks, without defin- 
ing them as copies, of Lohans in color,’ in one instance of a colored horse 
painting,’ and again of a ‘Night Promenade in Colors”’;’ but the very fact 
that these titles mention the color would indicate that its use was as unusual 
as our experience with the paintings would lead us to suppose. Indeed, even 
the copies in color must have been rare, for Tu Mu, in his Yii-yi Pien, while 
speaking of the ‘“‘ Meeting of Li Mi with the Prince of Ch’in,’’® says: “I have 
seen many pictures by Li Lung-mien in outline style, but this is the only col- 
ored painting that has come to my notice.’’ The only colored copy still extant’ 
is on paper, but the numerous colored copies mentioned in the catalogue are 
invariably painted on silk, and our experience and the catalogue also agree that 
the outline paintings upon silk are often additional copies of his own work 
made by Li Lung-mien himself. More often, however, the paintings on silk 
and in ink are copies from older masters, and we hear that in one case’ Li also 
copied colored work in ink. Tung Ch’i-ch’ang declares’ frankly that he does 
not believe Li Lung-mien ever painted an original composition on silk ; and 


* What is, perhaps, the choicest example of Li Lung-mien’s art in my possession, a painting of ‘* Twelve 
Lohans ’’ in exquisite coloring, is unfortunately so fine in line that it defied every attempt at reproduction. 


Category II, No. 12. * Category III, No. 8. * Category I, No. 5. * Category II, No. 10. 
* Ibid., No. 26. "The painting of ‘Twelve Lohans ’’ in the Meyer collection. 
* Category V, No. 10. * Ibid., No. 14. 


[ 234 J] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


indeed the catalogue records what our paintings verify, namely, that the 
greatest and the best known of Li’s paintings’ were done in his “‘iron wire”’ 
style upon Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper. The question is also complicated by an 
alarming quotation found in the “ Encyclopedia of Chinese Literature, Ancient 
and Modern” from the Shu-hua-shih of Ch’én Chi-ju,’ in which he states: “It 
is reported that in the imperial treasury there are numerous scrolls of outline 
pictures of men and horses done by Li Po-shih and many other ancient artists. 
His present majesty* had all those pictures taken out and ordered the court 
painters serving in the Wu-ying Palace to fill them in with colors. When done, 
they were handed in again and stored away in the imperial treasury.’’ Such 
was the taste of the Ming emperors. 

To sum up our observations on this point, it is reasonably fair to assume 
that paintings by Li Lung-mien on paper in ink are originals; likewise those 
on paper in color; ink paintings on silk are copies of older masters, or of Li’s 
own work made by himself; paintings on silk in color are also copies of older 
work. This discussion, be it noted, does not concern itself with the identifi- 
cation of a real Li Lung-mien from forgeries, or from later copies of his own 


work, but attempts only to analyze the artist’s preferences as to materials. 


XXVI 
Since Li Lung-mien’s materials are so important an element of his art, it is 
necessary to appreciate somewhat further his choice in these matters. For in 
the production of these conventional tools, the silks, papers, brushes, and inks, 
as in all other phases of Chinese art-expression, the element of heredity 


* Among others Category II, Nos. 7, 8, 62. * A scholar living a.p. 1558-1639. 
* Either Shén-tsung or Chuang-lieh-ti. 


[ 235 ] 


Chinese Painting 


played its part, and evolved a feeling for sheer quality, the refinement of 
which is in itself a tribute to the Chinese race. The firm textures and soft 
hues of their silks, the surfaces and substance of their papers, were not acci- 
dental, but the constantly improved results of a long line of sensitive artisans, 
whose labors, like those of the artists, were often guarded and encouraged 
by no less a personage than the emperor himself. In fact, the whole history 
of Chinese arts and crafts should some day be written from the point of view 
of royal influences, for, from its earliest semi-religious manifestations, the re- 
lationship of art to the court was necessarily close, with mutual reactions that 
were extremely interesting and important. Like so much else in China that 
was rare and lovely, Li Lung-mien’s favorite paper, called Ch’éng Hsin T’ang 
paper, owes its existence to such royal connoisseurship. 

The Ch’éng Hsin T’ang, or Mind-clarifying Hall, after which this paper 
was named, was built in a.p. 968 by the last Emperor’ of Southern T’ang, on 
the summit of a hill to the north of modern Nanking, Kiangsu, overlooking the 
Yangtze River. Famous because the air was fresh and cool there, even in the 
sultry season of the year, it served as a summer retreat for the emperor and also 
as his library and studio. Here it was that this artistic ruler began to make the 
paper that later became so famous. From various sources we find the character- 
istics of Ch’€ng Hsin T’ang paper described as finely textured, glossy, strong, 
smooth, thin, and silvery white. It was not made from raw materials, but was 
re-made from another excellent paper of the period, called the Hui or Shé 
paper. In other words, the Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper was merely an improved 
type of the Shé paper. It was not without defects, for the sheets were often 
narrow and short, making it necessary for the artist, when he wished to paint 


a scroll, to join together a great number of pieces to obtain the required length. 


*Reigned a.p. 962-978. 


[ 236 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


Before Li Lung-mien’s time, the painter Hsii Hsi' had an equally great fond- 
ness for Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper, and always preferred it for his pictures of 
birds, flowers, and fruit. We hear also that Huang Shan-ku, Li’s friend, used 
it for calligraphy. The Emperor Kao-tsung, as well as the Yiian artist Chao 
Méng-fu,” calligraphed various sutras upon it, and we are also told that it 
served Mi Fei’s son, Mi Yu-jén, for the depiction of one of his misty land- 
scapes. It was likewise prized for taking impressions of ancient calligraphies 
upon stone slabs as early as a.p. 992 by T’ai-tsung and his Academicians. 

Li Lung-mien’s well-known preference for this paper, and the unqualified 
praises bestowed upon it by the Sung poets and artists, have given rise to the 
belief among occidental students that it must have been the most beautiful 
of Sung papers; but it by no means deserves so unique a distinction. Vari- 
ous Sung authorities, Mi Fei among others, are constantly alluding to other 
papers of older and contemporary manufacture that they seem to consider 
equally fine, if not finer. The various Chinese art-books list as many as fif- 
teen papers that were commonly used by the Sung calligraphists and painters. 
The Shé paper, for example, made in the district of that name, was “smooth, 
glossy, white, and very lovable.”’ There were also the “rattan white” ( T’éng- 
po), “‘ Wild Goose White”’ ( Ku-po ), and “‘ Po-yang White” papers, of which 
each sheet measured from thirty to fifty Chinese feet. Others were the “‘co- 
coon paper,” which Li Lung-mien was known to use,’ “‘ bamboo,” and “ gray- 
black-ruled”’ ( Wus-su-lan ) paper, a product of Po-chou, Anhui; also “ large- 
sized,” “‘Kuan-yin watermark,” and “versicolored and powdered” paper, 
which Su Shih and Huang Shan-ku loved to use for painting and calligraphy. 
“Yellow and white copying”’ paper was not in two colors but was a white 
paper dyed yellow to defeat the ravages of the bookworm to which it was 


‘Lived a.p. 937-975. * Lived a.p. 1254-1322. * Category II, No. 31. 


[ 237 J] 


Chinese Painting 


very subject, and ‘blue clouds and spring-trees,” ‘dragon and phoenix,” 
“round flower-design,”’ and ‘‘ golden-flowered”’ are titles that describe the 
watermarkings of various other famous papers. 

At the beginning of the Sung dynasty, the Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper 
aroused no greater interest than any of those above named; but in the eleventh 
century it won the attention of the distinguished scholar Liu Pan, who com- 
posed a poem singing its praises, and invited several other scholars, such 
as Ou-yang Hsiu (a.p. 1007-1072), Mei Yao-ch’én (A.D. 1002-1060), Su 
Tung-p’o, and others, to do likewise. In this way the name of the paper was 
made, and its fame rang throughout the land; the demand for it among the 
cultured classes became suddenly so great that one packet or scroll would fetch 
a hundred ounces of silver, and often it was not procurable at any price. 

At the end of the twelfth century, an imitation Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper 
was manufactured, as the original stock had become very scarce; and Fei Cho, 
a Yuan scholar, in his ‘‘ Book of Papers’’ declares that the exact pattern of 
the Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper of Nan T’ang was used in this later product. 
Ch’ien-lung also had manufactured a variety of paper which was called Ch’éng 
Hsin T’ang, but it was heavily ornamented with gilt designs, and much thicker 
than the “thin, silvery white” sheets of which the Sung poets sang. 

Another famous variety of paper which Lung-mien treasured was entitled 
“white flax.”’ This was originally made by the Chin and Sung peoples 
(A.D. 265-479 ) from good cloth, and is known to have been much liked by 
Wang Hsi-chih for calligraphies and by Lu T’an-wei for painting. It took the 
very highest art to use this paper, as its loose texture easily spread the ink, 
and only such great masters of the brush as Wang and Lu, or Li, dared to 
put their skill to such a test. 


*See Category III, No. 10. 


[ 238 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


It is now very difficult to distinguish the papers, as time has invariably af- 
fected the tones, but we can quite definitely identify the Ch’éng Hsin T’ang 
make, as we are told that it was used by Li Lung-mien for the painting of 
the great Shu River scroll,’ now in the Freer collection. Even with this scroll, 
whose genuineness cannot be questioned, as a point of departure, it is still 
difficult to say positively which of the other specimens are the same. For ex- 
ample, we do not know what the “plain paper” was, of which Ch’ien-lung’s 
catalogue so frequently speaks in connection with Lung-mien’s paintings, and 
though a specialist might be able to settle the point, I should not venture to say 
which of the other papers do or do not resemble that of the Shu River scroll. 


XXVII 
Tins scroll of the Shu River was not mentioned when Li’s landscapes were 
under discussion because it was never intended by its author to be anything 
but one of those faithful topographical maps of which we find mention in Chi- 
nese literature as far back as the fourth century s.c.” The modern names of 
this river are Min Kiang and Yangtze Kiang. All its landmarks of contem- 
porary or ancient fame, whether mountain peaks, cities, tributary streams, 
monuments, or temples, are not only pictorially indicated, but written above 
them, in Mi Fei’s minutest and most careful calligraphy, are their ancient 
names. There has been some dispute about the writing on the scroll, because 
Tung Ch’i-ch’ang declared that Lung-mien himself had penned the inscrip- 
tions, but all other scholars, ancient or modern, are against him in the con- 
troversy, and it is therefore safe to assume that the calligraphy is actually that 


*Category V, No. 16. 
* See Giles, Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art, 2d ed., p. 3. 


[ 239 ] 


Chinese Painting 


of Mi Fei.’ The very fact that Lung-mien asked his friend to cover the 
upper half of his drawing indicates definitely that Li did not look upon this 
scroll as a work of art, for he never permits any of his other paintings to be 
so marred. There is, indeed, absolutely no aesthetic content in the whole pano- 
rama. The view from beginning to end is minute and quite literal. So expert 
a master of the brush as Li could not make even a topographical rendering 
of a scene without delicacy and charm; but one need only compare the Shu 
River scroll with the landscape of ‘‘The White Lotus Club,” to perceive 
clearly that the former has an entirely different purpose, and belongs to a 
different order of ideas. The one was intended for practical use, as the other 
was intended for the plastic expression of philosophic ideas; and the two things 
are as much related as are our geographical maps to the modern art move- 
ment. The mere fact that the Chinese use the same tools for both purposes 
should not confuse the question for any one of aesthetic sensibility. 

For this reason I cannot agree with Laufer* when he says that these maps 
are the foundation of the later schools of landscape art. It is true we have 
ample records of Chinese cartography, both for civil and military purposes, 
long before landscape painting was developed as an art; but this scientific 
pursuit went on, as the Shu River scroll indicates, without acquiring an aes- 
thetic purpose, long after landscape painting was an accomplished fact. As 
early as the Liang dynasty, moreover, the Emperor Yiian-ti in his essay on 
landscape painting warns against the use of map techniques for the drawing 
of distant mountains. It may be advanced in favor of Dr. Laufer’s theory that 
this is another instance in which the beautiful developed from the useful, as 
so often happened in the history of Confucian art. However, the classic arts 


"See Category V, No. 16, for further discussion of the matter. 
*See his Wang Wei, Ostasiatische Monatshefte, April, 1912. 


[ 240 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


that arose from the needs of the state, contained immediately the plastic ele- 
ment; moreover, Chinese landscape art sprang, not from a practical Confu- 
cian source, but from the aesthetic impulse that was inherent in Taoist meta- 
physics. Between these two psychologies, that of the literal map rendering and 
that of art production, there is no relationship, no natural bridge ; and when the 
impulse developed in the Chin dynasty for the pictorial expression of the Taoist 
love of nature, it was not associated either in thought or in environment with 
the imperial or Confucian needs that had for many centuries produced the topo- 


graphical maps. 


XXVIII 

Tue Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u declares that in his literary productions Li Lung- 
mien had the style of the Chien-an ( a.p. 196-220 ) or later Han period, thus 
placing him in an era that was still strictly classic. We are bound to accept 
this statement without cavil, as it has unfortunately been possible to discover 
only a few of his minor poems, that refer to days spent in the examination 
halls, or upon delightful picnics among blooming peach-trees, but give no real 
clue to his characteristics as a man of letters. 

If we now turn to a consideration of another art which Li practised, namely, 
that of calligraphy, to which the Chinese critics with their scholarly and tra- 
ditional minds ever assign the first place, we see once more a beautiful cor- 
roboration of the staid and classic temper which we have described as emi- 
nently that of Li Lung-mien. Since the day that Wang Hsi-chih first divided 
the calligraphists of his country into the Northern and Southern schools, all 
the great scribes of China, in spite of the fifty-six styles mentioned by Wei 
Hsii,’ can be grouped under one of the two divisions, according as they leaned 


* P’ei-wén-chai, Bk. I, p. 29. 


[ 241 ] 


Chinese Painting 


toward the “informal” hand, in which a man’s individuality could be freely 
expressed, or to the more constrained “lesser seal-writing,’”’ which had its 
origin in the Ch’in dynasty, and was ever adhered to by the more Confucian- 
minded scholars. I am fortunate in possessing a scroll on which, side by side, 
and treating the same subject, the beauty of the bamboo, are two essays, the 
one written by Mi Fei, the purest Taoist mentality which the Sung dynasty 
produced, the other by that archprotagonist of all that was best in Confucian 
thought, the poet-statesman Su Tung-p’o. Both men were the leading callig- 
raphists of their period, and this scroll fairly breathes forth the very essence of 
Chinese cultural history; for the one hand is as temperamental, as sensitive to 
the least deviation of the mind, as the other is controlled and impersonal in 
its technique, the former as much the incarnation of the spirit of romanticism, 
as the latter is the soul of classicism. From the few seemingly genuine cal- 
ligraphies of Li Lung-mien that are preserved to us, and the innumerable 
copies, we can quite definitely discern his style; and though it is not as opulent 
in its beauty as the stately ink-pictures of Tung-p’o, it is invariably in the 
same severely classic “‘li’’ style, with an even greater rigidity and precision 
of line. The signatures on his paintings, moreover, are all in the lesser seal 
hand, called Pa Fén, that harks back to the Han dynasty. We read in histories 
that Li Lung-mien practised with brilliant originality the freer styles insti- 
tuted by Wang Hsi-chih and his followers, and it would not be surprising 
that the Taoist side of his nature should occasionally and successfully seek 
this form of outlet. But, so far, examples of this sort have been denied us, and 
we can base our judgment only upon the beautiful classic specimens that have 
survived. A man’s calligraphy is the most immediate index to his character; 
and there, more than anywhere else, more clearly even than in the misty out- 


lines of his official career, more clearly than in the multi-colored texture of his 


[ 242 ] 


The Art of Li Lung-Mien 


pictorial self, do we behold Li Lung-mien’s adherence to the ancient patterns 
for the conduct of life. Though many additional strands, motives that had 
never occupied his forbears, were made to yield to his calligraphic as to his pic- 
torial art a newer, richer, subtler, and more individual hue, here again it is evi- 
dent for all to see that Li Lung-mien, evenas his Chou ancestors, was convinced 


that “‘the beautiful is secured through conformity to sanctioned standards.”’ 


[ 243 J 


INDEX 


Acapemy, Establishment of, 65. 
Alchemy in China, 87 and n. 
Amidism, 28, 30, 199. 

Amitabha, 27, 28. 

Angling and Fishing, 135 ef seq. 

Art, 41, 58, 122, 123, 162, 170, 172. 
Astronomy (Chinese), 7, 14. 


Beypa, ‘‘Belphegor,’’ in ‘‘The Dial,’’ 210. 

Bergson, quoted, 210. 

‘* Better Than,’’ Picture on, 134. 

Binyon, L., quoted, 28 n., 176 n. 

Bodhidharma, 28, 29, 30, 94. 

‘© Book of Filial Piety,’’ Hsiao-Ching, 57, 59, 67, 
121. 

‘* Book of Filial Piety for Girls,’’ Nii Hsiao-Ching, 
67. 

Brahman, The Wall-gazing, 30. 

Bronzes, 32, 40, 99, 100, 104, 173, 174. 

Buddha, 25, 29, 161. 

Buddhism, 25, 28-34, 36,37, 39, 40, 58, 72, 73, 
82, 94,121, 128, 157,159 ef seg., 163, 197, 
203, 217. 

Buddhist painting, 197-203, 208, 213,214,216. 

Buddhist sculpture, 198, 199. 


Carticrapny, 182, 188, 191,194, 237-239, 241- 
243. 

Cambodia, 197. 

Canon of Shun (Shu Ching), 12. 

Canon of Yao (Shu Ching), 12, 13. 

Cézanne, 178. 

Ch’an (sect), 28-32, 38. 

Chang Ch’ou, 93. 

Chang Hsiian, T’ang painter, 129, 178. 

Chang Hua, Chin scholar, 70. 

Chang Kuo, T’ang Taoist, 87, 88, 137. 

Chang Lai (Chang Wén-ch’ien), Sung scholar, 
106. 

Chang Séng-yu, 51. 

Chang Tsai, Sung philosopher, 39. 

Chang Yen-yiian, ‘‘ Li-tai Ming-hua-chi,’’ 181, 
183 n., 198 n. 

Chao Kuang, 231. 

Chao Méng-fu (Chao Tzti-ang), 130, 237. 

Ch’ao Pu-chih (Ch’ao Wu-chiu), 106. 


Chemical knowledge, 87. 

Ché-tsung, Sung emperor, 114, 132. 

Ch’én Chi-ju, ‘‘Shu-hua-shih,’’ 235. 

Ch’én Chii-chung, 230. 

Ch’én Chung-chii, 85, 86. 

Ch’én Hung, T’ang horse painter, 130, 229, 230. 

Ch’én Shih-tao (Ch’én Pi-hsii) , 106. 

Ch’én Ts’ang-ch’i, ‘‘ Supplementary Notes of the 
T’ang Materia Medica,’’ 88. 

Chéng Ching-lao, 106. 

Ch’éng Hao, Sung philosopher, 39. 

Ch’éng Hsin T’ang paper, 235-239. 

Ch’éng I, Sung philosopher, 39. 

Ch’éng-ti, Han emperor, 68. 

Ch’éng-wang, Chou emperor, 60. 

Chess-playing, 134, 168. 

Chi, Count of, 13. 

Chi Ch’iieh, 61, 62. 

Ch’i (feudal state), 17. 

Chiang-tu, Prince of (Li Hsii), 102. 

Chieh, Hsia emperor, 155. 

Ch’ien-lung, 238, 239. 

Chih Tao-lin, eminent priest, 132. 

Children of Li Lung-mien, 166. 

Chin, dynasty, 51, 82, 137, 181, 194, 241. 

Chin Dynasty, History of, 194. 

Chin-shih, literary degree, 35, 47. 

Ch’in (The Ch’ins), dynasty, 17, 155,175. 

Ch’in Kuan (Ch’in Shao-yu), 106, 134. 

Ch’in, Prince of, 234. 

Chou, Shang emperor, 155. 

Chou, dynasty (The Chous), 12, 13, 15,17, 19, 
23, 25, 27, 32, 60, 61, 172, 173, 175. 

Chou Fang, 178, 208. 

Chou-kung, premier of the Chou dynasty, 61, 
78 n. 

Chou Li, Chinese Classic, 17. 

Chou Tun-i, Sung philosopher, 39. 

Chu Hsi, Sung philosopher, 19, 39, 157. 

Chuangtzt (Chuang Chou), 23, 31, 37, 38, 76, 
161, 183. 

Chung-ni, name of Confucius, 76. 

Ch’u (feudal state), 17,176. 

Chii-shih (hermit-scholar), 50. 

Ch’ii Yiian, 89, 90, 176. 


[ 247 J 


Index 


Chiin-p’ing (Yen Tsun), 54 and n. 

Classicism, 193, 204, 217, 221, 224, 225, 227, 
228, 230, 242. 

Cleansing Ceremony, 151. 

Color, 233-235. 

Confucianism, 21, 22,25, 26, 34-40, 42, 58, 61, 
62, 66, 67, 70, 72, 73, 81, 90, 97, 98, 117, 
121, 138, 139, 150, 152, 157-159, 162, 163, 
174, 177-180, 188, 192, 204, 214, 228, 233. 

Confucius, 5, 15-19, 23, 32, 41, 59, 71, 76, 91, 
150,159, 161. 

Counsels of the Great Yii (Shu Ching), 12, 15. 

‘*Counsels of the Woman-secretary,’’ Picture on, 
Ole 


Demerzr and Dionysus, 10. 

Dice-playing, 134, 135, 168. 

Divination, 14 and n., 91. 

Drinking, Chinese view of, 149-157; see Intoxi- 
cated, Intoxication, Tu K’ang, Wine. 


Epxuys, ‘‘ Chinese Buddhism,’’ 13, 28 n., 29n., 
37 Ne, 39. 

Egyptians, 7. 

Eight Immortals of the Cup, 156, 157. 

Eighteen Wise Men of the Lu Mountains, 94. 

Elixir Vitae, 84, 85. 

Emerson, quoted, 25. 

Eminent Women, Biographies of, Lieh-Nii Chuan, 
68. 

‘‘Emperors and Their Subjects, Relations be- 
tween,’’ Pictures on, 211, 214, 215. 

‘*Epidendrum Pavilion, Picnic at,’’ Picture on, 
Sk. 

Europe, 5, 9, 217. 


Fa-usru, Priest Yiian-t’ung, 56, 106. 

Fa-yiin, monastery, 48. 

Fan K’uan, 196. 

Fan-lung, priest, 232. 

Fei Cho, Yiian scholar, ‘* Book of Papers,’’ 238. 

Féng, Chieh-yii, 66. 

Fenollosa, 28 n., 32, 145. 

Figure Painting, 51,170,172,176, 178,211,217, 
295-230) 

Fishing (Chinese), see Angling. 

Flint, Robert, quoted, 147 n. 

Foreign Tribes, Pictures on, 133 e¢ seq. 


[ 248 


Forgeries, 231. 

Form and substance, 192, 207. 

Fountain Among Peach Blossoms, A Narrative 
Description of, 146-149, 156 n. 

Four Classes of People (Chinese), 79. 

Four disciples of Su Tung-p’o, 106 n., 125 n. 

Four Hoary Men, 31, 83. 

Freer, Charles L., Collection of, 144, 176, 177, 
189, 213, 218, 219, 223, 229, 939gag, 

Fu-hsi, semi-mythical emperor of China, 11, 16. 


Ganpuara, 199. 

General Li, the Younger, 105; see Li Chao-tao. 

Giles, Herbert A., ‘‘ Introduction to the History of 
Chinese Pictorial Art,’’? 195, 196, 239. 

Goethe, quoted, 193. 

Golden Tartars, Chin, 45, 231. 

Goth, 5. 

Great Plan, The (Shu Ching), 13-15. 

Great Yii, see Yii the Great. 

Greek (Greece), 3, 5, 7, 10, 40, 60, 199, 214. 


Han, dynasty (The Hans) , 23, 25-27, 32, 37, 38, 
40, 45, 127, 128, 155,175. 

Han Hsiu, T’ang premier, 66. 

Han Huang, 122. 

Han Kan, 56, 57, 98, 122, 130, 177, 178, 203, 
205, 206, 229, 230. 

Han Yii, Han T’ui-chih, 72, 157, 159, 161. 

Heavenly Horses, The, 127, 131. 

Henderson, ‘‘ The Order of Nature’’ quoted, 18 n. 

Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle), 27. 

Hindu, Hindus, 26, 36. 
Hirth, F., ‘‘ Ancient History of China,’’ 15 n., 17— 
195, 23, 09 n. 
Hirth, F., ‘‘ The Story of Chang K’ien,’’ 128 n. 
Hirth, F., and Agnes E. Meyer, ‘‘ Native Sources 
for the History of Chinese Pictorial Art,’’ 181, 
200. 

Ho Kuang, Han premier, 67. 

‘* Homeward Let Me Turn,’’ Kuei-Ch’ii-Lai, Pic- 
tures on, 52, 106, 140 ef seq. 

Horses, Chinese love of, 127 ef seq. 

Horse Painting, 56,57, 102, 129 ef seg., 177,178, 
228-231. 

Hsi and Ho, ancient astronomers, 155 and n. 

Hsi K’ang, 74-81, 82, 137. 


1 


Index 


Hsia, dynasty (The Hsias), 11, 13, 27, 40, 100. 

Hsia Kuei, 233. 

Hsieh An, 160. 

Hsieh Ho, 195. 

Hsieh Ling-yun, 94. 

Hsien-tsung, T’ang emperor, 72, 157. 

Hsii Hsi, 237. 

Hsii Hsiin, 160. 

Hsii-yi, Li Hsii-yi, father of Li Lung-mien, 48. 

Hsti Yu and Tsao Fu, 31. 

Hsiian-ho Hua-p’u, 47, 50, 59, 144n., 208, 228, 
230, 241. 

Hsiian-ho-tien Po-ku-t’u, 100. 

Hsiian-ti, Han emperor, 128. 

Hsiian-tsung, see Ming-huang. 

Hsiing-nu, Northern Tartars, 35, 70. 

Hu Ch’ien, 177, 178, 230. 

Hua Chi, 4, 95, 122, 216, 229. 

Hua Hsi, 95. 

Hua-hsii-shih (mythical), Kingdom of, 155. 

Hua Shih (Mi Fei’s), 232. 

Huan Wén, 67. 

Huang-fu Mi, ‘‘ Lives of Scholar-recluses,’’ 31. 

‘*Huang-Lao,’’ 21. 

Huang Shan-ku, Huang T’ing-chien, Huang Lu- 
chih, 4, 46, 47, 57, 106, 124 et seg., 131, 134 
et seg., 158, 166, 237. 

Huang-ti, semi-mythical emperor, 21, 154. 

Hui-hung, priest, ‘‘ Léng-chai Yeh-hua,’”’ 56. 

Hui-tsung, Sung emperor, 46,99, 100, 103, 116. 

Hui-yiian, eminent priest, 30, 93, 94, 145, 146. 

Humor, 212, 213. 


Ipea, Importance of, 185, 186, 192. 

India, 31, 32,94, 134, 199, 201. 

Individualism, 226-228, 230. 

Ink, Use of, 233, 235. 

Intellectualism, 210. 

Intoxicated, Description of the Land of the, Tsui- 
Hsiang Chi, 153, 156n. 

Intoxication, see Drinking. 

‘Tron Wire’’ style, 233, 235. 

Irony, 214, 215. 

Italian frescoes, 191. 


Japs, 32, 99, 100, 102-104, 173, 174. 
James, Henry, quoted, 192. 


Japan and Japanese, 28 n., 32. 
Java, 197. 


Kao-rsune, Sung emperor, 237. 

K’ao-ku-t’u, 100. 

Khitan, Tartars, 45, 64. 

Khotan, 40. 

King of Hell, see Ti-tsang. 

Kokka, 229 n. 

Koo, T. H., ‘‘ Constitutional Development of 
Western Han Dynasty,’’ 24 n. 

Ku K’ai-chih, 51, 55, 70, 121, 122, 176-178, 
182, 188, 205, 208, 212, 222, 225. 

Ku-yi, Immortal of, 89, 154. 

Kuan-hsiu, priest, 134, 200. 

Kuan T’ung, 108. 

Kuan-yin, 27, 28, 56, 161, 216, 232. 

Kuang-wu, Han emperor, 136. 

Kuei, jade tablet, 53. 

Kuei Shén, 19. 

K’un-wu knife, 101. 

K’ung, name of Confucius, 78. 

K’ung Kuang-t’ao, ‘‘ Notes on Calligraphies and 
Paintings,’’ 208. 

Kuo Hsi, 196. 

Kuo Tzu-yi, T’ang general, 64. 


Lan-7’ ten, district, 101. 

Landscape painting, 32, 41, 161, 176, 182 et 
seg., 189, 190, 196, 218-233, 239-241. 

Laotzii, 20-23, $7, 43, 54n., 76, 91, 98, 120, 
121, 159, 187, 208, 223. 

Laufer, in ‘‘ Ostasiatische Zeitschrift,’? 196, 240. 

Legge, James, see Shu Ching, Yi Ching, Lun-yii, 
and Shih Ching. 

Li, Chou emperor, 155. 

Li Chao-tao, 189, 205, 206, 218, 234. 

Li Ch’éng, 108, 196. 

Li Chih-yi, Li Tuan-shu, 105. 

Li Ch’ung-yiian, 165. 

Li Kung-lin, official name of Li Lung-mien, 47, 
AQ. 

Li Mi, 234. 

Li Po, Li T’ai-po, 152, 156, 157, 161. 

Li Po-shih, cognomen of Li Lung-mien, 49 ef seq. 

Li Shéng, 196. 

Li Ssii-hsiin, General Li the Elder, 105, 107, 122, 
189, 194-196, 205, 206, 220. 


[ 249 J 


Index 


Liang, dynasty or kingdom, 34. 

Lieh-tzt, philosopher, 89, 156 n. 

Liu Ching, Liu Chii-chi, 107. 

Liu Chung-yiian, 124. 

Liu Hai, 189. 

Liu-hsia Hui, 76. 

Liu Hsiang, 68. 

Liu Ling, 74, 153. 

Liu Pan, Sung scholar, 238. 

Liu Shih-p’ei, ‘‘ Development of Chinese Fine 
Art,”? 172-174, 194, 196. 

Liu Yung-chih, 86. 

Lu Léng-chia, 200. 

Lu T’an-wei, 51, 55, 121, 122, 129, 178, 205, 
208, 212, 238. 

Lu Yu, ‘‘ Lao-hsiieh-an Pi-chi,’’ 231. 

Lii Hui-ch’ing, 113. 

Lii Shang, Chou premier, 136. 

Lii Ta-lin, 103 n. 

Lun-yii, Analytics (Legge’s ‘* Text of Confucian- 
ism’’), 18 n. 

Lung-mien Hills, 49, 165. 


Ma Yiian, 233. 

Mahayana (Greater Vehicle), 27, 29. 

Mailla, de, ‘‘ Histoire de la Chine,’’ 45 n., 90n. 

Martin, W., ‘‘ The Chinese,’’ 87 n. 

Mather, in ‘‘ The Nation,’’ 196. 

Mayers, ‘‘ Readers’ Manual,’’ 31 n. 

Mei Yao-ch’én, Sung scholar, 238. 

Mencius (Méng K’o), 23, 71, 98, 161. 

Metamorphic Being on the Wind, 89. 

Meyer, Agnes E., ‘‘A Chinese Primitive,’’ 182. 

Meyer Collection of Paintings, 182,211,213,219, 
234. 

Mi Fei, Mi Yiian-chang, 105,110, 164,185,188, 
189, 221, 232, 234, 237, 239, 240, 242. 

Mi Yu-jén, son of Mi Fei, 237. 

Ming, dynasty (The Mings), 40 ef seq. 

Ming artists, 192. 

Ming-huang, Hsiian-tsung, T’ang emperor, 62, 
65, 66, 129, 205. 

Mr. Five-Willow-Trees, Biography of, 144,145. 

Mu, Baroness, of Hsii, 68. 


Nacarsuna, 29. 
Narcissism, 3. 


Narrative paintings, 191, 192. 

‘* National History and Literature, Journal of the 
Essence of,’’ Kuo-ts’ui Hsiieh-pao, 172. 

Nestorian, 35. 

Nirvana, 26. 

Northern School: Of Painting, 194-196, 220; of 
Calligraphy, 241. 


Opes of Pin, 61. 
Ou-yang Hsiu, 99, 238. 


Pao-ust, i.e. Fu-hsi (q.v.). 

Paper, 234, 235, 237, 238. 

‘* Parental Love and Filial Piety,’’ Pictures on, 71. 

Parker, E. H., ‘‘ A Thousand Years of the Tar- 
tars,’’ 45 n. 

P’ei, Duke of, 66. 

P’ei-wén-chai Shu-hua-p’u, 183 n., 232, 241. 

Pelliot, P., ‘‘ Les Grottes de Touen-Houang,’’ 
200, 202. 

Persia, 40. 

Perspective, 186, 187. 

Petrucci, ‘* La Nature dans la Peinture Chinoise,’’ 
203. 

Pi, jade ring, 54. 

Pictures done conjointly with Su Tung-p’o, 123, 
124. 

Polo-playing, 129. 

Population in China, 90. 

Pure Land, ‘‘ Ching-t’u,’’ 27, 30, 31, 93. 

Pupils of the Pear-garden, 65. 


Renaissance, $, 247, 
Reversible Text, Poems of, 71. 
Roman, 7. 

Romanticism, 193, 230, 242. 
Rome, 5. 

Rope-knotting, 154. 

Royal influences on art, 236. 


Saussurg, L. de, 7n., 9n., 12,13n., 16n.,36n. 

Seals of Ch’in, 101. 

Seven Wise Men of the Bamboo Grove, 30, 74, 
82, 137, 152, 153, 155 n., 158, 160. 

Shan Chien, 83, 215. 

Shan T’ao, 74, 75. 

Shang, dynasty (The Shangs), 11, 12, 27, 100. 


[ 250 |] 


Index 


Shao Po, ‘‘ Wén-chien Hou-lu,’’ 111. 

Shén-tsung, Sung emperor, 45, 113. 

Shih Ching (Shé King), 69. 

Shih Huang-ti, Ch’in (First Emperor of the Ch’in 
dynasty), 23 n. 

Shu Ching (Shu King), 12,13,15n.,16n.,155n. 

Shun, ancient emperor, 154. 

Six Dynasties, 81, 180. 

Songs of the Nine Spirits, 89. 

Southern School: Of Painting, 194-196, 220; of 
Calligraphy, 241. 

Southern T’ang, Nan-T’ang, 236. 

Sst-ma Kuang, 46, 126. 

Stein, M.A., Collection of, 200. 

Stone pictures of the Han period, 128, 198, 202, 
223. 

Stone, Transference of calligraphy and painting to, 
144, 

Su Ché, Su Tzu-yu, 46, 105, 124, 137, 158. 

Su Kuang, 71. 

Su Tung-p’o, Su Shih, Su Tzt-chan, 46, 47, 57, 
103, 105, 110-118, 121 ef seg., 132, 135, 137, 
158, 166, 208, 229, 237, 238, 242. 

Sung (Early), empire, 51. 

Sung Dynasty, History of, 4, 100. 

Sung Kingdom, History of, 183 n. 


"T'a-sut-cum, Bodhisattwa, 27. 

Ta-tien, priest, 72, 73. 

Tai K’uei, 182, 198. 

Tai Po, 182. 

T’ai-tsung, T’ang emperor, 35, 62-65, 138. 

T’ai-tsung, Sung emperor, 237. 

T’ai-yi, North Star, 8, 88. 

T’ang, founder of the Shang Dynasty, 78. 

T’ang, dynasty (The T’angs), 5, 29, 32, 33, 36, 
38-40, 137, 152, 153, 156. 

Tao, 21, 31, 88, 89, 155, 184, 185, 187, 192. 

Taoism, 20-22, 25, 32,33, 37-40, 58, 73 ef seq., 
82, 83, 87, 89, 90, 96,97, 138-140, 152,159, 
162, 180, 193, 215, 218, 233. 

Tae Te Ching, 20, 21, 91, 98, 121, 187, 208, 
223. 

T’ao Ch’ien, T’ao Yiian-ming, 52, 58, 59, 82,94, 
106, 116, 139-149, 152, 155, 158-161, 233. 

T’ao Hung-ching, 84, 85, 137. 

Tartar, Tartars, Influences of, 19, 27,70,127,130, 
Pee. 84, 177,178, 207, 229, 230. 


Tea-drinking, 167. 

Téng Wan, Queen-consort of Ch’u, 68. 
Thibet, 132, 197, 201. 

‘* Three Horses,’’ Picture of, 132. 

Three Paths, 142 and n. 

Three Religions of China, 91. 

Three Wise Men of Wu-chung, 84. 

Ti-tsang, 120. 

Time and space, 186, 187. 

Ting-lin, monastery, 48. 

Toad’s fat, 101. 

Tortoise-shell and divining-rods (stalks) ,14.n.,15. 
Tradition, Chinese attitude toward, 179-181, 

183, 185, 190. 

Traditionalism, 208, 224. 

Tribute of Yii, The (Shu King), 121. 
Trigrammes, 16. 

Ts’ai Chao, Ts’ai T’ien-ch’i, 104, 105. 

Ts’ai T’ao, ‘‘ T’ieh-wei-shan Ts’ung-t’an,’’ 100. 
Ts’ai Wén-chi, Ts’ai Yen, 70. 
‘Ts’ao Méng-té, Ts’ao Ts’ao, 118. 

Ts’ao Pa, 130, 230. 

Tséng Yii, Sung scholar, 131. 

Tsu-ting, Shang emperor, 104. 

Tsung Ping, 183. 

Dy Ful tang poet 62,156, 157, 161. 

Tu K’ang, inventor of wine, 154. 

Tu Mu, °‘ Yii-yi Pien,’’ 234. 

T’u-shu Chi-ch’éng, great Encyclopaedia, 102. 
T’ufans, 64. 

Tun-huang, Frescoes at, 200, 202. 

Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, 92, 234, 239. 

Tung-fang So, 76. 

Tung-tan, Prince of, 207, 230. 

Tung Yiian, 196. 

Turkestan, 132. 

Turks, T’ou-kue, 62. 


Uicvrs, 64. 


Wane An-shih, 45-47, 86, 110, 112 et seg.,125 
et seq.,137. 

Wang Chi, 153, 156n., 158. 

Wang Chung-chih, 106. 

Wang Hsi-chih, 83,151,160,182,195,238, 241, 
242. 

Wang Hsin, Wang Chin-ch’ing, 105. 


[ 251 ] 


Index 


Wang Méng, 67. 

Wang T’ung, 153, 158. 

Wang Wei (fifth century), 183. 

Wang Wei, 52, 98, 126, 138, 147, 159 ef seq., 
190, 194-196, 205, 206, 218-220. 

War, Chinese view of, 63. 

Wel, dynasty, 34. 

Wei Hsieh, 182. 

Wells, H. G., ‘‘ Men Like Gods,’’ 147 n. 

Wén-ti, Han emperor, 66. 

Western (early ) Chou, see Chou, dynasty. 

‘* Western Garden, Poetical Gathering in the,’ 
Pictures on, 104, 234. 

Western Heaven, Hsi T’ien, 27. 

Western Hsias, Tartar Kingdom, 114. 

White Lotus Club, 30, 93, 94, 145, 146, 219- 
225, 240. 

Wieger, L., ‘‘Histoire des Croyances religieuses,”’ 
etc., 87 n. 

Wine, Eulogy of the Virtues of, 153. 

Wine-man, 155. 

Woman, Chinese attitude toward, 67-71. 

Wu, Chou emperor, 13, 78n., 155. 

Wu, King of Ch’u, 68. 

Wu-li-pu, ‘‘ Chats on Poetry,’ 131. 

Whu-ti, Han emperor, 127, 128. 

Wu-ti, Liang emperor, 29. 

Wu Tséng, ‘‘ Néng-kai-chai Man-lu,’’ 102. 


> 


Wu-sun, 128. 
Wu Tao-tztl, 51, 52, 95, 98, 108, 122, 166, 200, 
203, 205, 206, 208, 219, 229, 295. 


Yano and Yin, 8, 9, 16, 21. 

Yang Kuei-fei, 65, 66. 

Yao, ancient emperor, 13, 31, 150, 154. 

Yeh Méng-té, 232. 

Yen Li-pén, 4, 95, 96, 178. 

Yen Tzu-ling, Yen Kuang, 136, 137. 

Yen Wén-kuei, 196. 

Yi Ching, Book of Changes, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 
39. 

Yin, see Yang and Yin. 

Ying-tsung, Sung emperor, 111. 

Yu, Chou emperor, 155. 

Yii the Great, 8, 11-14, 140. 

Yiian An, 61. 

Yiian Chi, Yiian Ssti-tsung, 74, 77, 155 and n. 

Yiian Chuang, Buddhist pilgrim, 35. 

Yiian-ti, Han emperor, 66. 

Yiian-ti, Liang emperor, ‘‘Set Rules for Painting 
Landscape, Pines, and Rocks,’’ 183, 240. 

Yii Chien-yt, 195. 


Zen, see Ch’an (sect). 
Zoroastrianism, 35. 


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